Richard Williams was an excellent coach before Stansbury and consistently led MSU to the big dance in the 1990s including that Final Four run in 1996 with Dampier and Dahntey Jones.
They were a consistent NCAA team in the 1990s and early 2000s including a Final Four run in 1996. They've recruited well with Richard Williams and Rick Stansbury and that's not including guys like Jonathan Bender and Al Jefferson who signed but ended up going to the draft straight from high school.
Richard Williams was an excellent coach before Stansbury and consistently led MSU to the big dance in the 1990s including that Final Four run in 1996 with Dampier and Dahntey Jones.
Stansbury could recruit really well, but wasn't the coach that Richard Williams had been.
Mississippi has enough talent to recruit. Alot of great players have come from that state and MSU would routinely get elite players from the state. Jackson, MS has produced plenty of NBA players.
Don't forget Monta Ellis.....dude was going to go to Miss. St. but went straight to the pros. People here (me included) think that team could have made a very deep postseason run.
You had that transfer forward. What was his name? I remember he chose Mississippi State over Arizona.
What year? Lawrence Roberts?
2004-05. It was Lawrence Roberts. Arizona had Channing Frye, Ivan Radenovic, and had a highly touted Freshman, Mohammed Tangara.
Ellis was actually the year after Roberts graduated.
Yeah Lawrence Roberts was a beast at MSU. Dat Arizona team would have been SICK with him in the lineup I'm sure.
RobertS was a transfer from Baylor during the whole Dave Bliss scandal. Roberts chose Baylor over Arizona years prior due to proximity. When he was granted his transfer with immediate eligibility most thought he'd end up at Arizona, but he was transferring at a time when Arizona had a developing Channing Frye and Ivan Radenovic, two eventual All-Pac12 players, had a commitment from Ndudi Ebi, a top-5 PF prospect from Houston (who went prep to NBA and flunked), and had commitments from a borderline 5-star PF/C in Tangara, who then suffered a debilitating back condition.
Roberts on the 2004-05 Arizona team and they have the size to compete with North Carolina for a le. Ended in the Elite 8 with OT loss.
Unfortunately Lute started losing his evaluation skills early/mid 2000s. Took "elite" ranked talent over the gems he was known for finding. I'm sure he regrets Ebi over Lawrence, though in a few rankings Ebi was second in the nation as a prospect to only LeBron, so, tough to say no.
Years earlier he took an imposing 6-10, 230 Dennis Lattimorr and 6-9, 245 Isiah Fox. Both were highly regarded, Fox a 5-Star. He secured their commitments over backup plans. Those backup plans then chose Arizona State and UConn (who was also in it for Fox).
Names were Ike Diogu and Omeka Okafor.
Diogu averaged 21-9 in three seasons at ASU and went Lottery, and Okafor anchored a le team for UConn, went lottery.
Lattimore got injured and transferred, and Fox got injured and got fat.
Had Lute been himself, Arizona could have had a three year run of Diogu/Okafor/Frye with Like Walton at SF, Iguodala at SG. Nuts what could have been.
Last edited by JMarkJohns; 03-27-2015 at 10:28 PM.
Mississippi State has never been an easy win for the Rebels. Outside of this season the Bulldogs have beaten the Rebels every season since 1998.
B-b-but he wins 20 games every year.And how does Andy Kennedy keep pulling off these miracles to keep his job?
Dude called a cab driver a "sand niqqer and Bin Laden".
And he still kept his job. Dude is not capable of getting fired IMO....
baseline bum JMarkJohns
You guys were absolutely right on Ben Howland being a great recruiter...
Today Miss. St. got Malik Newman (#10 in the ESPN top 100 and the #1 SG) to sign. Everybody here thought he was going to Kentucky or Kansas but he chose to stay in state. Ben Howland is already hitting the recruiting trail hard....and I'm finally excited about Mississippi State basketball.
HAIL STATE!!!
Last edited by Silver&Black; 04-24-2015 at 11:39 PM.
Howland recruited nationally. As I said, while at UCLa he pulled recruits from Northwest, Southeast, Southwest, Northeast, and transfers from all over, but mainly UNC.
Again, much of it was Adidas connections, and assistant coaches. Most AAU folks hated Howland, as he's gruff, unfriendly, but if you want to go pro, you have a short list of great coaches to get you there and he's on it.
I figure he starts heading into Texas and Carolina regions next.
Not a surprise at all, considering the monster recruits like Kevin Love, Jrue Holiday, Shabazz Muhammed, Kyle Anderson, and so on he pulled for UCLA. But I loved that these great recruits became better players under Howland too. UCLA's previous coach, Steve Lavin, used to pull incredible recruiting classes too, but then his guys (other than Matt Barnes) would stay the same player they were when they came to UCLA. Westbrook and Darren Collison in particular were just supposed to be supporting guys, but Howland turned them both into big time players.
I'm not saying I disagree....but there is a huge difference between getting "insert great players name" to go to UCLA and to go to Miss. St.
This is the first top #10 recruit in the schools history. Color me impressed with the guy already.
Probably a briefcase filled with cash involved.
Did Howland ever have any recruiting violations tbh ??
Secondary violations, but none connected to him.
Idiots like Josh Smith got free buffets, Shabbaz got free crap from an agent.
Like I said, he needs more high upside, hungry types like Westbrook, Mbah A Moute, and fewer talented assholes like Tiny Gallon, Nelson, Shabazz.
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