PROVIDENCE, R.I. – At times, one must wonder if Mississippi State head coach Rick Ray has asked himself, “What have I gotten myself into?” In fact, he may have had one of those moments about five minutes into the second half of Saturday’s 73-63 loss at Providence, when his team had a 3-on-1 break and ended up with a blocked shot and turnover out of it.
To be fair to the first-year head coach, this isn’t the first time a new head coach has come into an obvious rebuilding situation, and one where the first year isn’t pretty. He will have time to get the program rolling again. But the young season thus far would appear to be more than a little taxing on the soul, although Ray says otherwise.
“Not at all,” Ray says when asked about that. “Our guys are easy to coach, they continue to come in, they listen, they learn, they’re trying to play hard.”
Mississippi State is now 2-5 on the season, but that record is a bit deceiving. The only wins are against Florida Atlantic and Alcorn State, both blowouts out home. Neither was a game where they led wire to wire, and they never led in three of their losses. They went to Maui and not only went 0-3, but didn’t even look competitive as they lost the three games by an average of 29 points per game. Granted, they played three good teams in North Carolina, Marquette and Texas, and did so with just six scholarship players, but it wasn’t a good trip at all on the bottom line. The Bulldogs shot 33 percent from the floor, were out-rebounded by an average of six per game and turned the ball over 61 times.
With many teams, defense is usually the biggest problem early on, and while it is not a strength for this team by a long shot, the offense looks to be a bigger concern. Saturday was the second time all season that the Bulldogs have out-rebounded an opponent (38-36 against Providence), but they do force over 17 turnovers a game and opponents are shooting 42 percent against them – not a great percentage, but it could be worse. Offensively, however, they have been atrocious, shooting below 39 percent from the floor and turning the ball over more than 18 times per game. They shoot less than 23 percent from long range, and no player has more assists than turnovers.
This was noticeable on Saturday, where the Bulldogs didn’t score their first field goal until almost five and a half minutes into the game. They also didn’t hit a single three-pointer in the first half and shot less than 20 percent from the field in the opening frame. For the game, they were 2-22 from long range and had 15 turnovers against a short-handed Providence team that played mostly zone defense.
“We take bad shots in the first half,” said Ray. “Our decision-making on offense puts ourselves in a hole more than our defensive effort.”
Part of the struggles come from inexperience. Mississippi State’s starting lineup on Saturday had just one upperclassman, junior Tyson Cunningham. Only three upperclassmen, including one senior, saw minutes on Saturday. Two of their top three in minutes played are freshmen. One way in which the inexperience shows is the lack of urgency at the beginning of games, as Ray said they have tended to start out slowly because they don’t play with the sense of urgency they showed once they were down by 26 in the second half on Saturday.
Injuries haven’t helped, either. Mississippi State has already lost freshmen DeAndre Applewhite and Jacoby Davis for the season due to torn ACLs, and Jalen Steele fractured his left wrist eight minutes into their second game of the season and is out 6-8 weeks. Steele was expected to become a double-digit scorer this season, scoring 16 in their season opener.
That leaves Ray unable to hold his players accountable and use some things as in-game teaching moments. He can’t sub players out as much as he would like because his team is short-handed. It’s not that they need to sit as punishment, but so they can learn lessons right as they come in games. In addition, it would be better for them to develop at a different pace, as opposed to being thrown right into the fire like Ray has had to do.
“Truth be told, some of these guys who are playing 30 minutes a game as a freshman, they probably should be playing about 15 minutes a game, not because of lack of talent, but because that’s the way it should happen,” Ray said.
At first glance, the rest of the non-conference schedule looks manageable, although they will still have to go on the road to play Loyola-Chicago. The Bulldogs don’t play another BCS conference school or an elite mid-major, so they have a chance to work some things out and gain some confidence before SEC play starts.
Ray comes to Mississippi State with good credentials, and his hire is an out-of-the-box one as he has no prior Division I head coaching experience. Ray was an assistant at Clemson and Purdue in his last two jobs, working for two excellent head coaches, and also worked at Indiana State. Mississippi State hasn’t been a perennial NCAA Tournament team, and hasn’t been there since 2009 when they made a big run through the SEC Tournament. They have had ups and downs, but also a couple of nice runs, and have produced some NBA players and watched a few recruits opt for the NBA before ever donning a Bulldog uniform. So it’s not as if Ray is at a place where it’s impossible to get talent and ultimately win.
The early going of this season suggests it could be a long season in Starkville. But Ray will have time to get the program going, and he feels like he has a good group from a character standpoint and in terms of being coachable. The work ethic doesn’t seem to be a problem, and the fact that they made Saturday’s game a close one after trailing by 26 at one point in the second half is a credit to them and indicative of what Ray mentioned in terms of not quitting.
