STARKVILLE — As valuable as games are to the growth and development of his players, Mississippi State men”s basketball coach Rick Stansbury is focused on practice.
Stansbury has stressed the importance of using practice to improve in his team”s “second season” since the return of Dee Bost and Renardo Sidney.
And even though the Bulldogs (10-7, 2-1 Southeastern Conference) are on a two-game winning streak and appear to have Bost and Sidney on a steady track, Stansbury admits his team is fighting the clock in preparing for the likes of the University of Georgia, Florida, and Vanderbilt.
MSU will travel to Georgia (13-3, 2-1) on Saturday to face forward Trey Thompkins, the SEC Preseason Player of the Year.
On Monday during the SEC coaches” teleconference, Stansbury was asked about how he plans to improve his team”s interior defense, but he responded with a laundry list of areas the Bulldogs have to clean up.
“When we talk as a staff and start making a checklist of things you want to go down, you check off everything,” Stansbury said. “You can check off half-court offense. You can check off half-court defense. We need to be a little bit better and find ways to extend the defense. We need to rebound the basketball better.”
Those are all areas coaches hope to address during non-conference play, but the unavailability of Bost and Sidney forced mismatched lineups and didn”t prepare the Bulldogs for the added dimensions a skilled starting point guard and a talented post player brought to the court.
With two games each week in the SEC, it”s impossible to address so many areas while still installing the game plan for each opponent. MSU coaches planned to use Monday and today to recruit.
“It”s hard to continue to do it all, but we”ve got to pick and choose some things we know with this team,” Stansbury said. “It”s not what we want the personnel to do but what it”s capable of doing, to pick and choose those things to help us to continue to get better.”
Stansbury said he still “not happy” with Sidney”s conditioning, but he said “the process” is getting better.
Stansbury was pleased to see Bost, whom he said didn”t have to improve his fitness level as much as Sidney, take a such a big step forward in the past two games.
“Missing those 17 days of practice really put him behind the curve,” Stansbury said. “But he”ll get his back in a hurry. You”ve seen his rhythm already. It was so much different from the first game.”
Tough RPI stretch coming up
MSU”s three-game stretch against the SEC”s East Division will provide a Ratings Percentage Index test the team hasn”t faced this season.
Stansbury spoke about the hyped imbalance between the SEC”s divisions and preparing for Georgia, Vanderbilt and Florida, which have a combined record of 38-11 and an average RPI of 25.3.
MSU”s RPI is 191, the second-highest in the SEC. The RPI is one of the factors used by the NCAA tournament selection committee to select the field for the postseason.
SEC West teams have the five highest RPI rankings in the league.
Stansbury acknowledged the East”s quality from top to bottom this season, and the annual consistency of Kentucky and Florida.
But the SEC West was criticized for having a down year last season, in which it didn”t have a team make the NCAA tournament.
Stansbury chalks it up to being “a trend” and highlighted Monday his team”s success against the SEC East.
“In our 12 years we”re 45 and 45 against the East,” Stansbury said. “In SEC tournament play, overall in 12 years, we”re 10 and 8 against them. I think in the last four years, we”re 6 and 4, and in the last two years we”re 5 and 1. I think there”s trends, but we have been competitive against the East when you look at records. That changes from year to year.”
Georgia is coming off a 98-76 victory Saturday against the University of Mississippi in Oxford. MSU will play host to Vanderbilt on Jan. 27 and Florida on Jan. 29. Both games will be broadcast nationally.
Bost named SEC Player of the Week
Just three games into his suspension-shortened junior season, Bost earned his first league award of the year Monday when he was named SEC Player of the Week.
Bost averaged 17 points, 4.5 rebounds, and eight assists in wins against Ole Miss and Auburn last week. He shot 52 percent from the floor and saved his best performance for Ole Miss (25 points, eight assists), which came after a disappointing debut loss at home to Alabama.
Bost hasn”t shown the rust in the past two games as much as he did against Alabama. Stansbury said Bost”s biggest hurdle has been finding rhythm with new players and adapting to being the sole option at point guard.
Last season, starting two-guard Barry Stewart served as Bost”s backup and could handle the ball when both were on the court, which allowed him to float around the court and to get different looks at the basket.
“It”s not easy for us to do that,” Stansbury said. “Riley Benock and Ravern, that”s not their games, to be able to initiate the offense off the bounce and put it on the floor like a point guard. Because of that, it”s put a little more responsibility on him to have to handle that basketball a little bit more.
“We want him to score. We have no problems with him scoring. The biggest thing for him is you don”t want him to search for his shot. There”s times I wish we could slide (Bost) to that two over there and have some freedom off that basketball and go score. I think as we go on, we”ll be able to do that.”
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