MSU News & Notes | Saturday, December 21, 2013

After hibernating for months, News and Notes is back! I'll do my best to be as uninformative as I can, as usual.

MSU shuts down Dunk City to move to 8-2

I will be the first to admit that I have paid almost zero attention to the basketball team so far this year, which is a shame, because they played their best game of the season Thursday night to move to 8-2 on the young season. To clarify, it took MSU until March 2nd of last year to reach 8 games, and they'll head into Christmas break with at least that many, if not more as they get ready to play in the Las Vegas Classic tomorrow and Monday.

It really sounds like the team is coming together to play its best basketball since Rick Ray came aboard in 2012, which is exciting to see. So many in our fanbase still opine for Rick Stansbury, and really besides being ridiculous and absurd, they are wasting time in not supporting the coach we have, and the coach who evidently is doing a great job.

Kudos to Rick Ray, and here's to hoping that the season continues to go well building off the win over Florida Gulf Coast.

MSU ranked #2 in first college baseball poll of the preseason

We're just under two months away now from the start of the 2014 college baseball season, and the preseason polls have already started to roll out. The first poll released was the Collegiate Baseball Poll, and State fans were happily surprised to find MSU ranked second in the initial rankings. The Bulldogs were behind only Cal State Fullerton, and were one of eight SEC teams ranked in the initial poll.

Honestly, that's pretty exciting to see State that high, but it also makes me nervous. There have been times when State has not done well with preseason expectations, but I do feel a lot better after MSU finished second last year after starting the season ranked fifth. The most important thing is for it to not go to the team's head, and after hearing John Cohen speak, it sounds like that won't be a problem.

MSU fined $25,000 for violation of artificial noisemaker rule

I've seen a lot of complaining about this fine since it was announces yesterday, but honestly I completely expected it, and think it's deserved. And for those among us who are just SO SURE that Ole Miss or some other school taddled on us, you do realize that all of our SEC games were on television, right? Also, I'm pretty sure the SEC has representatives at games and can talk to officials or anyone who was in attendance. It wouldn't be hard for them to find out that we violated the rule, so let's be a bit cautious before we fully embrace our tinfoil hats of conspiracy.

Also, I think the fine was just for violating the rule period in the 2013 season, not for any one game. If I'm not mistaken, the rule's language details that MSU will be fined if they violate the rule any time during the season, and that certainly happened.

It's frustrating to me after the games I went to this year to see people still ring pre-snap, but it's never going to stop. I will say that it seemed a bit better during most normal 3rd downs during the games I attended, but in games like LSU, Alabama, and Ole Miss, yeah, the cowbells were out in full force on key defensive downs. Honestly I don't think that will ever be culled, which stinks because I know that it means that we're certainly headed back down the path towards losing cowbells altogether yet again.

Maybe Scott can work his magic negotiating powers with Satan, I mean Slive.

MSU finishes 23rd in average TV viewers for 2013

With the college football regular season in the books, we now have the final TV viewing numbers for all CFB teams in the 2013 season. MSU came in ranked 23rd in the nation with an average of 2.6 million viewers per game. Alabama finished first, averaging 6.45 million viewers per game.

It's interesting to look at GBH's numbers, and to also look at the individual game numbers for all games in the season.

Lady Bulldogs clobber SE Louisiana 109-57

The lady Dawgs moved to 12-1 on the season last night with an average at best* 52 point win over Southeast Louisiana. Seriously, these girls are playing good ball for Coach Vic, and things will only improve next year as they signed one of the best players in the country, Victoria Vivians.

I was a big MSU women's bball fan growing up, and it's exciting to me to see us potentially return to the years of success that we achieved when LaToya Thomas and Tan White were playing in Starkville.

Bowl season kicks off today

Bowl season is here! Today's lineup includes the New Mexico Bowl, the Las Vegas Bowl, the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, and the New Orleans Bowl. They aren't the best games, but hey, it's football!

I hope you all have a great Saturday, and hope you all stay safe out there today as this nasty weather rolls through the south.