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Jon Rothstein works for CBS Sports. And he tweets a lot, generally about college basketball, because that’s what he covers for a living. And today he went on a couple different tangents of sorts in which he brought up players that he thought would perform well in the SEC.
And several of those players were guys that most of us in Starkville are pretty familiar with right now. He listed a slough of different names under various categories: 15 Impact Freshmen, 5 Under the Radar Freshmen (for a total of 20 freshmen), 10 Impact Transfers, 5 Under the Radar Transfers, and 10 Breakout Guys. That’s a total of 45 names in 5 different categories.
Well, Mississippi State made up a decent chunk of those guys listed. Lamar Peters, Mario Kegler, Schnider Herard, and Eli Wright were among his 15 Impact Freshmen, making up almost a third of the list there.
15 Impact SEC Freshmen cont'd: L. Peters (MSU), M. Kegler (MSU), S. Herard (MSU), E. Wright (MSU).
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) August 8, 2016
He also threw Tyson Carter in his 5 Under the Radar Freshmen.
5 Under-The-Radar SEC Freshmen: S. Keita (SC), T. Carter (MSU), B. Tyree (Ole Miss), S. Mays (LSU), K. Parker (Tennessee).
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) August 8, 2016
Other players that he’s pretty high on? Sophomores Aric Holman and Xavian Stapleton.
10 SEC Breakout Guys: L. Kornet (Vandy), D. Robinson (UF), I. Humphries (UK), A. Gilder (A&M), D.J. Hogg (A&M), A. Holman (MSU).
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) August 8, 2016
10 Impact SEC Transfers cont'd: C. Neal (Ole Miss), D. Burnett (Ole Miss), J.C. Hampton (A&M), X. Stapleton (MSU).
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) August 8, 2016
It’s easy to see why Rothstein likes these two. Holman started to come into his own as the season progressed last year and he’ll get plenty of playing time this season. And Stapleton had a solid season at Louisiana Tech in 2014-2015. He’ll have to fully recover from some injuries, but once he does that, he should be able to add some solid experience to this team.
Even though it’s almost football season, I’m starting to get more and more interested about what this coming basketball season might have to offer. With Quinndary Weatherspoon destroying Lithuania’s best in Italy and seeing these names get thrown around, it’s really easy to get excited about the future of Mississippi State basketball.