re: Who left State in a worse situation Croom or Stansbury?

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One recruiting class can change the dynamic.

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This is the absolute truth. It's so much easier to have a quick turnaround in basketball than it is in football.

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He was widely considered one of the top coaches on the SEC.

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Link? Only BCS-level coach in the past 20 years to have that long of tenure without making a Sweet 16. Only Northwestern even comes close. EVERY other BCS program that has failed to make a Sweet16 in that timeframe are on their 3rd coach at least.

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kept us in a pretty consistent position to win the West.

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= Not even worthy of an at-large bid to the dance. Not a notable accomplishment.

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kids don't wake up in the mornings and say "I hope I can play at Mississippi state one day if I work hard enough".

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Maybe not nationally, but we've got a full generation of Mississippi kids dreaming of playing at MSU. That's the by-product of being mostly good for 20 years(and absolutely dominating the in-state rival in that time frame).

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a coach who had built a program and made a name for it and we fired him.

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Richard Williams laughs at this bullshite assertion. Stansbury inherited a much, MUCH better program than he left. He got the job less than 2 years off a final 4, 3 years off a sweet 16... It has now been 16 years and we haven't been back.

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Give the guy another year and you at least hold on to that talent along with the rest we would have.

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Hood was leaving long before Stansbury was dismissed. So, this assertion is BS. He was disgusted by the toxic atmosphere and saw that he would never achieve his goals at MSU. This is well-documented. Ray's hiring nearly brought him back into the fold, it did NOT push him out the door.

The only legitimate player arguments to be made are Josh Gray(who would be here) and Devonta Pollard(who may/may not have signed with us). In 16 years, it was a known fact that we were never getting to the next level under Stansbury. After 7 years of regression, it was time to make a move. Whether or not Ray was the right move is yet to be seen...

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Who would you attribute this to? Also that's all pretty much over an done with at this point, we are starting from scratch.

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Richard Williams as a coach and Rick Stansbury as a recruiter.

How do you figure we "are starting over from scratch?" Last I checked, the previous 20 years are still on the record books.

Stans did ALOT of great things in his time at State and it's unfortunate that ridiculous people that still support Stansbury over our SCHOOL make the rest of us diminish that in arguing about proper timing of his dismissal. Fact is, he stayed too long, and that divided the hell out of the fanbase. Should have gone to Clemson in 09 when he had the chance and EVERYONE would have been much better off. Same thing with Ron Polk coming back after leaving. Him staying away would have been better for us in the long run.

Thank goodness this is something that Mullen understands fully based on the conversation I had with him one night at Mugshots last year. He "says" his over/under for staying at State is 10 years. Said he got a 2 year pass and figured he'd piss off 10% of the fanbase every season after that. By some of the dumbass stuff I've seen out there from State fans, it seems he's right on pace.

Bottom line is we had probably one of, if not the most talented team in Miss State history this past year and what did Stans do with it? Couldn't even make the dance, much less a Sweet 16. Which he never could accomplish in 14-15 years.

Get off Rick Ray's back and give the guy a chance. By year 3 we should be seeing some results. Not only was he left with pure shite in what returning players he had coming back, but he had to dismiss 2 guys since being hired. Also, 2 season ending injuries and the main returning player out for 6 weeks.

Stansbury was a good recruiter but a terrible coach IMHO. With all the talent he had over the years he got little accomplished. Sidney was the cancer that brought about his demise.

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Stansbury made his record by feasting on weak clubs. His record against competitive teams was horrible.

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Yet he won an SEC title 2 tourney titles and made 6 NCAA trips. Side note we had only been to 10 total in the history of our program. Williams only made 3 in his 10 years

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Stans never won 2 games in the NCAA tourney... not once... not ever... never. Wouldn't you say he had the talent to make it past the first weekend at least once?

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Not really. In the last 15 years how many NBA caliber players have played at state? The same goes for people saying he was a great recruiter but bad coach. That's completely BS, he took mediocre kids and made them look good. His time was up but saying he was a bad coach is just silly.