| 1996 | Oct | Nov | Dec | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Jan | Feb | Mar | April | May | June | July | Aug | Sep | Oct |
11/30/97 - Miss State, now 6-1 on the year, defeated Northwestern (La.) State University 84-73. Miss State was led in scoring by Horatio Webster with 20 points. Detrick White, who continues to improve offensively, scored 17; Tyrone Washington, in his best offensive game to date, scored 16; and sensation freshman Tang Hamilton continues to show why he can be a special player by scoring 13 points and hustling on both sides of the court.
The Bulldogs' next game is 2:00 next Saturday against the Oklahoma Sooners. You guys need to be there. This team deserves your support.
11/27/97 - Miss State defeated Tennessee Tech, 83-57, behind the shooting of Detrick White and Horatio Webster, who both scored 19 points. Trey Moore and Tang Hamilton each scored 11 points. Sophomore point guard Todd Myles looked extremely sharp passing the ball in the first half and became more offensive minded in the second half, scoring 8 points. Tyrone Washington, while scoring just 4 points, played a great game defensively. Overall, it was a great game by a very tired Bulldog squad, who got back from a long trip to Alaska Monday afternoon.
To all of you Bulldog basketball season ticket holders who will be at State this Saturday; be sure to go to the basketball game Saturday night. Miss State plays a very good Northwestern (LA) State, who just recently beat Baylor at Baylor.
11/27/97 - Recruiting guru Bob Gibbons rates MSU's basketball class the 18th best in the country. Source: The Clarion-Ledger
11/26/97 - Don't forget, the Bulldogs have a basketball game tonight at 7:00 against Tennessee Tech. This Bulldog team deserves your support so go to the game if at all possible. They haven't come close to scratching the surface on how good they will be later in the year once they have played together for a while. And it is just downright scary (to the other SEC schools that is) thinking about how good they will be next year and the years after.
11/24/97 - Miss State (4-1) defeated Southwest Missouri State, 79-68, for third place in the Top of the World Classic late Sunday night. Horatio Webster scored 28 points once again. He averaged 22.3 points per game during the three game tournament. BTW, Gonzaga, the team that defeated Miss State by 2 Saturday night, defeated Clemson, the 5th ranked team in the country, by 12 to win the Classic. Doesn't sound so bad losing to Gonzaga last night, does it?
11/24/97 - Here is Basketball Times (Rankings done by Mike Sheridan and Dan Wetzel) top dozen recruiting classes of the fall signing period:
1. DePaul
2. Arizona
3. Florida
4. Cincinnati
5. Missouri
6. Memphis
7. Miss. State
8. UNLV
9. Kentucky
10. Iowa
11. St. John’s
12. Xavier
11/23/97 - Miss State (3-1) lost to Gonzaga 70-68 last night at The Top of the World Classic. Even though they lost, you have to give the Bulldogs credit for a great comeback by coming back from a 10 point deficit with 5:50 left in the game to losing by 2. Detrick White led the Bulldogs in scoring with 16 points (4 - 3-pointers in the 2nd quarter). As Coach Williams said, this game was a great learning experience. He also said the main purpose of this tournament is to play some really good competition which he hopes will help make Miss State a better team later on.
Miss State will play Southwest Missouri State (lost by 4 to Clemson, the #5 ranked team in the country) at 9:45 p.m. tonight.
11/22/97 - In a poorly played game by the Bulldogs, MSU defeated Alaska-Fairbanks (a D-2 team) 66-64 in double overtime. The great play by Detrick White down the stretch saved the Bulldogs. Derrick Jones' 3-pointer (his first field goal of the season) with a little over 2 seconds to go in regulation put this game into overtime. Hopefully, we can chalk this one up to jetlag. The game was over at 2:10 a.m. our time.
11/19/97 - Fredrick Jonzen, the 6-9 Swedish basketball player Miss State looked at, signed with Oklahoma State according to Hoop Scoop.
11/12/97 - The latest word on recruiting is MSU will sign three during the early period: Tyrus Boswell, Ontario Harper and Robert Jackson.
11/12/97 - The basketball Bulldogs looked great once again with a 77-40 mauling of the Arkansas Express. The Dawgs started off slow but around the 8:30 mark (same time as the first exhibition game), they took control of the game. By the half, the Dawgs led 34-24 behind the 3-point shooting of Tang Hamilton (6 points), Detrick White (8 points), and Derrick Jones (8 points).
At the 7:40 mark of the first half, MSU had played 9 players. Rotating so many players in and out took it's toll on the Arkansas Express players during the second half when they could only score three points in the first 10 minutes. While they were more athletic than the Chemosvit team and could run with our Bulldogs for a while, they finally wore down from the continous in-your-face defense and the continuous movement of the ball on offense by our Dawgs.As I stated earlier, the three-point shooting of Tang, Detrick and Derrick got the Dawgs rolling in the first half. In the second half, MSU had several players take on offensive leadership roles. At the beginning of the second half, Trey Moore (11 points) took it upon himself to score several quick points, scoring six in a matter of minutes. After he was taken out of the game, Oral Roberts (9 points) began scoring points in bunches, scoring nine altogether. Not to be outdone, Horatio Webster (game high 14 points) took the banton and continued the scoring after Oral cooled off. Even Quentin Smith (6 points) got into the act with two big-time dunks.
Overall, this game was a great tuneup for the upcoming game with Centenary. The rotation players got the chance to play a lot of quality minutes against an athletic team. It also showed MSU doesn't have to count on any one player to score a lot of points to win games. In fact, MSU had nine players score at least five points. Six of whom scored eight or more points. It also showed me that MSU has a point guard who is an absolute magician passing the ball to the open man. Todd Myles (8 points) sees everything on the court and gets the ball to the open man just about any time he wants to. Watch this kid, he is going to be special.
11/10/97 - I just noticed in the MSU-BC Chemosvit boxscore that we had nine players who played at least 15 minutes. The highest was Todd Myles with 29 minutes and the lowest was 15 minutes by Tang Hamilton and Oral Roberts. 17 points in 15 minutes, that was quite a bit of production by Tang "Hang Time" Hamilton.
11/10/97 - Click here to read a very good article by Danny P. Smith of The Commercial Dispatch (Columbus, MS.) about the Saturday exhibition game between MSU and BC Chemosvit.
11/09/97 - Great basketball game yesterday between State and BC Chemosvit . At least it was great for the MSU fans. The Bulldog fans who were lucky enough to go to the game saw the emergence of a very talented freshman, Tang Hamilton.
For the first 11 plus minutes BC Chemosvit outplayed MSU, then with 8:26 left in the half freshman sensation Tang "Hang Time" Hamilton (or should I call him "Drop your pants" Hamilton. I'll explain this later.) made a thunderous dunk that seemed to wake up MSU. From then on MSU had complete control of this game, outscoring BC-C 65 points to 27. Tang scored 17 points (3 - 3 pointers and 2 dunks were included in this scoring), which led the Bulldogs in scoring. After seeing him play, I now see why he was considered the consensus number 1 player in Mississippi last year. He can score inside or outside, dribble, pass and run the court with the best of them. In fact, this Bulldog team will probably be able to run the court with almost any team. Did anyone notice how fast Oral Roberts (junior) gets down the court on a fastbreak? Wasn't it exciting to see senior 2-guard Trey Moore (senior) make some big-time moves to the basket? How about sophomores Derrick Jones (13 pts; 3 3-pointers) and Quentin Smith (8 pts.) showing tremendous improvement since their freshman year? They both play so much more aggresively this year. Point guard Todd Myles (sophomore) was really running the offense even scoring 9 points, including 1 3-pointer. Junior Detrick White is quick as lightning. Look for this guy to get a lot of steals on defense. It looks like freshman Marckell Patterson will be red-shirted along with sophomore T.J. Billups since neither one was dressed out. As most of you know, junior Bart Hyche is serving a 4 game suspension, therefore he didn't play. I'm not sure why senior Whit Hughes didn't play. He must have been hurt. MSU played a nine player rotation, with no dropoff when bringing in new players.
If you can, go to the Tuesday exhibition and decide for yourself how good this team can be.
Back to the drop your pants episode by Tang Hamilton. Tang, while at the free throw line, was told to pack in his shirt. Mary Ann and Anna (a friend of ours) as well as every other woman in the crowd were treated to a view of Tang's boxer shorts when he proceeded to drop his pants while tucking in his shirt. It sure brought a chuckle from the crowd.
11/08/97 - Don't forget, the Miss State basketball exhibition is at 2:00 p.m. today. Should be a fairly good game since BC Chemosvit has five former Olympians on it: Stefan Svitek, Jam Drobney played for Slovakia; Peter Orgler, Jozef Lovik played for Czechoslovakia before the nation split into two countries; Milorad Kovacevic played for Yugoslavia in previous Olympics).
11/05/97 - MSU's own Darryl Wilson scored 54 points in his lastest game in Iceland.
11/05/97 - I noticed in the 10/21/97 edition of the LSU Purple & Gold magazine, Cedric Patton (Power Forward from Huntsville, Ala.) was being recruited by Miss State, among others. Wrong! They must have us confused with Ole Miss. There was also a comment that Brandon Dean, a very fine point guard from Ouachita HS in Monroe, La., would be committing to LSU soon. I was told yesterday he has committed to Clemson.
11/04/97 - A friend of mine had a chance to talk with one of Miss State's veteran basketball players yesterday. According to this player, Miss State is going to be GOOD this year. Nice to know the players believe what we also believe. BTW guys, don't forget this Saturday's exhibition game which is at 2:00 p.m.
11/03/97 - Thought some of you would enjoy reading how the various pre-season basketball publications rate Miss State in the SEC Western Division:
Four of the publications expect MSU to get an invitation to the NCAA Tournament: Preview Sports, Dick Vitale, Street & Smith's and The Sporting News.
11/02/97 - Here are the very unofficial stats from yesterday's MSU basketball scrimmage:
Maroon Team:
White Team:
Game Notes:
1) Tang Hamilton will be a force to be reckoned with in the SEC once he gains a little more weight. He has quick feet, great ball-handler, can go inside and dunk with the best of them and go outside and shoot the trey just as easily, can play 2-guard or small forward.
2) Oral Roberts is a very quick big-man who can jump with the best of them. He has a very nice turnaround jumper from inside the paint, which is difficult to block. Good rebounder.
3) Detrick White is lightning quick with a great first step and can really go to the basket. Great on the fastbreak.
4) Derrick Jones has improved tremendously from last year. He is playing with a lot more confidence on the offense.
5) The team made 30 of 39 free-throw attempts, which is 77%.
6) One thing that is noticeable about this team is the guards did not seem to get frustrated when under pressure. They just found the open man.
7) Without question, the passing is going to be some of the best you have ever seen at State.
8) Because most of the players live in the same apartment complex and are around each other a lot, they really seem to feel comfortable with each other and it shows on the court. There appears to be very good team chemistry.
9) I have never seen such deep and talented depth on a Miss State team. There was not a whole lot of difference between the Maroon and White teams. Coach Williams could start either lineup in the SEC and be very competitive. The luxury he has is he literally has two quality players (more at certain positions) at every position.
11/02/97 - Got this info from one of my northern Iowa sources:
"I went to the Warriors game against the T-Wolves and Big E (Eric Dampier) did get the start. Played solid D and a good 30-35 minutes. Not a "go-to" guy on offense but he is definitely a defensive presence."
11/01/97 - Former Bulldog Eric Dampier has earned the starting center position on the Golden State Warriors. According to my source, the Bay area media has been very positive about Dampier, often mentioning him as the future of the franchise.