Mississippi State Strong or Weak?

[osceola48]

Yes, Mississippi State is undefeated, and they had a good win against Texas in mid-November. But that was their only ranked foe. And they were not impressive in two of their last three games. Tonight, with 5 minutes left in the game, they led lowly Arkansas-Little Rock by just five points. And two games ago, Iowa State was beating Miss State handily and then choked big time. So are they good? Are they the 5th best team?

 

[SCspur]

Yes, Mississippi State is undefeated, and they had a good win against Texas in mid-November. But that was their only ranked foe. And they were not impressive in two of their last three games. Tonight, with 5 minutes left in the game, they led lowly Arkansas-Little Rock by just five points. And two games ago, Iowa State was beating Miss State handily and then choked big time. So are they good? Are they the 5th best team?

I doubt it definitely top 15 or 10 but idk about top 5. They are not impressive offensively but they are pretty good defensively. A lot of teams RPI are going to hurt them come tourney time because they don't schedule enough ranked teams. SC, Florida St, and UCLA should be ranked higher then them in the poll IMO.

 

[JordyG]

Nope.

 

[oldude]

I have not seen MSt this year, but I did see them in person last year against the Huskies and it was not pretty. At that time MSt struck me as a big, strong team without a lot of quickness. I assume they are a little quicker this year, but as with a number of SEC teams, they appear to be winning ugly.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

They did finish second in the SEC Tourney last year, but were the recipients of a UConn blitz from which they never recovered that night. In the practices leading up to the game Vic Shaeffer warned his club that if they dragged in the game like in practice they would be crushed and he implored them to hustle in a couple of forced time outs. It is like many SEC teams - very good athletes, but not too many really skilled ball players. Vivians does not have enough help on offense. #5 I don't think so. Vic's known strength is defense, but he is a savvy coach and the team could make it deep in the tourney.

 

[UcMiami]

Miss State like TX before them and DePaul this year are not as bad as Uconn made them look - all three teams got steamrolled by the Uconn express, so don't read too much into those really lopsided games.
But they and FSU have nothing on their resume to suggest they are actually top ten teams, nor does Louisville or really Maryland or Ohio State, or truly ND or SC, or Baylor, or UCLA, or Washington State or Stanford. The teams that have played 'top ten' opponents and won have seen those teams drop in the standings, and if they have other ranked wins they are against the mid teens or higher rankings. It is really early to get a true read on the pecking order, and at least in conference play we will begin to get some more clarity. The Big10 teams are going to be the toughest to read - after Uconn, MD will return to a pretty weak schedule in conference - they should handle Ohio State and after that who will challenge them. At least the other conferences present a few teams that can cause problems for their conference front runner with the B12 being next softest.
Every P5 conference leader will likely enter play with one lose or 0 and only the Pac12, ACC (3), and SEC will likely have two teams 'ranked' in the top ten and only SC will play a significant OOC game after New Years. And none of those teams ranked in the top 10 will have many 'ratings eligible' games on their resumes from the OOC except for their losses.

 

[Charlie]

I agree with UcMiami, most teams will play at most one or two legit teams and otherwise play a bunch of exhibition games. The rankings should consider the strength of schedules more. Not so impressive (at least to me) for an individual to score lots of points against a weak team, or teams to score a huge victory against a weak team. I personally discount those games unless they lose.

 

[UcMiami]

Meant to add to the previous post:
Finally the poll voters have to make guesses - I just listed every team besides Uconn in the top 12 as having a light resume for being in the top 10 - but someone has to be and the voters have to make educated guess with limited data. A lot of it is based on reputation and looking at last year's results and the amount of talent lost and new talent coming in. They do a pretty good job of it - we quibble about a few places and relative resumes, but we aren't doing anything more than they are doing, just adding our own biases to theirs.

 

[SCspur]

Miss State like TX before them and DePaul this year are not as bad as Uconn made them look - all three teams got steamrolled by the Uconn express, so don't read too much into those really lopsided games.
But they and FSU have nothing on their resume to suggest they are actually top ten teams, nor does Louisville or really Maryland or Ohio State, or truly ND or SC, or Baylor, or UCLA, or Washington State or Stanford. The teams that have played 'top ten' opponents and won have seen those teams drop in the standings, and if they have other ranked wins they are against the mid teens or higher rankings. It is really early to get a true read on the pecking order, and at least in conference play we will begin to get some more clarity. The Big10 teams are going to be the toughest to read - after Uconn, MD will return to a pretty weak schedule in conference - they should handle Ohio State and after that who will challenge them. At least the other conferences present a few teams that can cause problems for their conference front runner with the B12 being next softest.
Every P5 conference leader will likely enter play with one lose or 0 and only the Pac12, ACC (3), and SEC will likely have two teams 'ranked' in the top ten and only SC will play a significant OOC game after New Years. And none of those teams ranked in the top 10 will have many 'ratings eligible' games on their resumes from the OOC except for their losses.

Well we did face Ohio St.-#7 at the time. Louisville-#4 at the time, Texas-#14 at the time, and we also face UCLA Sunday who is #9, UCONN-#1 and Miss St.-#5 so I would say that is a pretty good resume if you ask me.

 

[UcMiami]

Well we did face Ohio St.-#7 at the time. Louisville-#4 at the time, Texas-#14 at the time, and we also face UCLA Sunday who is #9, UCONN-#1 and Miss St.-#5 so I would say that is a pretty good resume if you ask me.

Yes I know - and I was not knocking your schedule - but as you say 'at the time' and all of the teams played so far have dropped significantly while one not listed has actually risen. The point is the only win on the resume to date against another team in the top 10 currently is Louisville a team that was a preseason favorite but has struggled to win against #17 KY and W-KY and lost its only games against top ten ranked teams.

My point wasn't that teams didn't deserve their rankings, but that the rankings were really guesstimates at this point based on fairly scant data.

(And no, I am not looking forward to an easy game in February! )

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Really, what UCMiami realized during his posting is the point - virtually no one has played a particularly strong OOC schedule (relative to their ranking) except UConn. Some are tougher than others (such as South Carolina or Texas, though of course Texas lost the games).

Folks doing rankings are indeed guessing, based on limited data. It is even more confusing when one realizes (if you think about it) that a poor performance winning by a few points against a weak foe - as an "isolated incident" - doesn't really mean much. Do it all the time or lose, then it is significant. But almost every team has a "bad day" (UConn, seldom) at least once a season.

These teams are ranked where they are because to some degree other teams have played even worse schedules. Arizona is 7-1 and has played no-body. Which is fine, coming off of last season's disaster and now with a new coach and rebuilding. But no one is ranking them, obviously.

 

[Plebe]

Mississippi State graduated only one senior last season, and she barely played. They are definitely improved over last year, and their offense has been respectable against the tougher teams they've played (though they obviously had a bad first half yesterday against UALR). I certainly don't think they're as good as #5, but I'd put them somewhere between #8 and #12.

I also think they're a team that plays a lot better at home than on the road. They beat Texas at home fairly convincingly, beat Oregon by 12 on a neutral court, and had to come from WAY behind to beat Iowa State on the road.