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Message: [QUOTE="MSUrealist, post: 3866482, member: 11054"] It seems like most MS State fans are bemoaning the loss of Vic Schaefer and clamoring for the removal of Nikki McCray Penson, but I'm going to argue that the coaching performances of these two have been virtually the same this season. Disagreements are welcomed as long as they are based on something real rather than just an emotional response based on speculation of what would have happened, etc, AND if you don't just look at the W-L records and conference standings and declare "case closed" because that is too simplistic as I will explain below. While judging a coach's performance is an inexact science, a fairly accurate comparison can be made by looking at the team's roster, their strength of schedule, and the results. Let's start a look at the rosters by comparing the 3 former McDonald's All-Americans on each team: --Rickea Jackson and Celeste Taylor: Sophomore guards who were named to the all-conference freshman team last year. IMO, I give the slight edge to Jackson as the better of these two. --Charli Collier and Sidney Cooks: Both juniors, Collier was 1st team all-conference last year and has been projected as the #1 pick in the WNBA draft while Cooks sat out last year after transferring. No offense to Cooks, but give Texas a big advantage in this comparison. --Kyra Lambert and Madison Hayes: Lambert is a graduate student who had 77 starts during her 3 seasons at Duke. Hayes is in her freshman season. Based on experience alone, you have to give the edge to Lambert. I give Texas a solid advantage when it comes to the 3 comparisons above, but Jessica Carter compared to the Texas #4 player probably brings the talent levels back towards equal. Then if you take the time to go down the remaining players on each roster you'll see that things are fairly even. All in all, it seems to me that Vic and Nikki are working with equal talent this season, with both teams lacking in experience and depth. If you disagree, I would be interested in seeing your list of player-to-player comparisons. Moving on, Vic easily wins when it comes to W-L record and conference standing. Texas is 16-6 overall, and is 4th in the Big 12 with a 10-5 record. MS State is 10-7 overall, and is 8th in the SEC with a 5-6 record. But then you come to "Strength of Schedule" and MS State has played the 6th toughest schedule while Texas is down at #30 (see link below). It's only natural for Texas to have the far better record so let's take a closer look at how these teams have done against ranked and unranked teams: ---Against teams currently ranked in the AP top-25, Texas is 0-4 having lost to the #3 Texas A&M, #7 Baylor, and twice to #18 W. Virginia. MS State is 1-5, having lost to #3 Texas A&M, #5 S. Carolina, #13 South Florida, #16 Arkansas, #19 Kentucky while having a win against #17 Georgia. Give MS State an edge here for having won a game and having lost a couple in OT, but obviously neither coach has done well against top-25 teams this year. ---Against unranked teams: Texas is 16-2 in this category with a loss to a bad Texas Tech (5-12) team and a loss to a good Oklahoma State (13-5) team. MS State is 9-2 against unranked teams with both losses come to a good Alabama (15-7) team. Even though MS State doesn't have a loss to a team with a record worse than 15-7 this year, I'm okay if you want to give Texas a slight edge because they have 7 more wins against unranked teams. SO, to sum up for anyone who has made it this far, the roster strength at Texas and MS State are amazingly similar this year. The results of the two teams are amazingly similar when you factor in the strength of the competition played. The situation of having to try and install a new system, become familiar with new players, scout unfamiliar teams, etc, are exactly the same for both coaches. It all adds up to the reality that the job performance of Vic Schaefer at Texas and Nikki McCray Penson at MS State have been almost identical in 2020-21. You can say that both have done great in a transition year, or both have done terrible, or that with all the disruptions of Covid this is a season where judgement should be put on hold until next year. What the reality doesn't allow a person to say is that one coach has done great and the other has done terrible. At least that my opinion after taking a lengthy look at both teams. [URL unfurl="true"]http://warrennolan.com/basketballw/2021/sos[/URL] [/QUOTE]

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