re: Will Mississippi State win a conference basketball game?

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Just curious why he was let go. I never knew the story.

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Here's my version of the events.

Stansbury was a hellava recruiter. In basketball, sometimes talent is good enough to overcome an average floor coach, which Stansbury was.

Stansbury was Richard Williams' top assistant when we made the Sweet 16/Final 4 runs of 95-96. Richard Williams got a pom squad girl pregnant or something and resigned after a mediocre 97 season. Stansbury was popular and took over in 98.

He had us in the NIT in 99, and in 2001 we started becoming a year in, year out NCAA team. When the Baylor program got left in ruins when one of their players murdered another, we landed their All-American, Lawrence Roberts. In 2004, we had a 26-2 regular season, won the SEC outright and landed a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

That year upset a lot of fans. We lost to Xavier in the second round. The year before, we had lost to a 12 seed Butler as a 5 seed in Birmingham. In the NCAA Tournament, it seemed that Stansbury's average floor coaching caught up to him, when in reality, Butler and Xavier were much better teams (as they would show in the subsequent years).

A couple more times in the decade, Stansbury won the SEC Tournament out of nowhere. We had great NCAA games against top seeds Duke and Memphis, but could not pull out the upset. Fans were genuinely happy, but despite all the success, we couldn't make a Sweet 16.

The downfall of Stansbury came with Renaldo Sidney. He was a Mississippi boy that moved to LA his senior year of high school. After some weird recruiting issues with Southern Cal, he landed at Mississippi State (had to sit out a year).

The first year that Sidney played, we got out to a great start, was ranked in the top 10 for a time, but chemistry wasn't there. You could tell. Pure talent was winning games, but down the SEC stretch, we lost six in a row to teams that we should have beaten bu double digits. We found ourselves on the wrong side of the bubble and made the NIT - losing to North Carolina in the Hump.

In my opinion, the Sidney deal was dirty. I have no proof of this. It is only my opinion. The fact that he would literally not play defense, he was out of shape, etc., and still he was rewarded with playing time indicates to me that he had so much on us that he could not be benched or disciplined.

We played in a tournament in Hawaii, and he got in a fight with a teammate in the stands over some nachos. Video evidence shows that Sidney instigated the fight, but the other player was kicked off the team. Sidney had a minor suspension over the issue. Again, I feel like he had so much on us that we could not properly discipline him.

Stansbury's contract was up at the end of that season. The athletic director wanted to clean up the program. Stansbury wanted to fish. I honestly believe he would have stayed retired, but he lost millions in a lake development project gone bad, so he returned to the sidelines as an assistant at A&M.

ETA: He could recruit with the best of them, but couldn't always keep them. Five of Stansbury's prized recruits finished their careers at other powerhouse programs.


Robert Jackson left MSU and led Marquette to the Big East title and the Final Four (in a year where we were a #3 seed in the tournament)


Ben Hansbrough was a freshman sensation at MSU, and ended his career as Big East Player of the Year at Notre Dame


Reginald Delk left MSU and starred on a Rick Pitino Louisville squad.


Romero Osby was all-Big 12 and led Oklahoma in scoring.


Rodney Hood left MSU and became an All-ACC performer at Duke.