Can one player really make this much difference? Can the loss of one player take a team from being ranked 11th in the country to the NCAA bubble?
Sure the player that was lost is the team’s best defender and best three-point shooter. But does the loss of one player really make this team worse than Auburn and Tennessee?
If it were only that easy. If only Winsome Frazier returned and everything went back to normal with Mississippi State returning to the pinnacle of the SEC.
Unfortunately that is not the case. The return of Frazier isn’t the medicine that will make this team a contender in the SEC again. Its problems go much deeper than that.
Frazier’s return will not magically make this team tougher or play with effort and intensity. This team is more deeply flawed than that.
This team has the talent to take it as far as it wants to go, but plays with the effort that will doom it come tournament time in March.
“It is disgusting that a team with this much talent comes out and loses on the road like this,” an agitated Shane Power said after loss to Auburn. “We don’t have 15 players playing as one.”
When the Bulldogs play at The Hump, all the team’s problems seem to melt away. The team plays with emotion, toughness and determination.
There is no better example of that than the Dawgs’ 71-57 win over Florida last Wednesday. State held a team that had been averaging 82 points a game to just 57. The Hump was rocking and the team was revved up.
However, take this team out on the road and it falls apart. No emotion, no intensity and worst of all, no defense.
Alabama’s Earnest Shelton and Kennedy Winston drop 34 and 24 points respectively in Tuscaloosa. LSU’s Brandon Bass pours in 26 in Baton Rouge. Auburn’s Frank Tolbert, a player who had been averaging less than four points per SEC game, blows up with a career-high 29.
Wide-open shots, lane penetration by the other team and shoddy rebounding are common sights in road games this season. Things like that can’t be remedied by the return of one player, no matter how good that player is.
“True leadership and toughness is determined on the road and we didn’t have it tonight,” Stansbury said.
Stansbury has consistently said that the team is not using the loss of Frazier as an excuse for the losing. This is usually after he talks about the bad match-up the Bulldogs had with the player that Frazier would have been guarding being just too quick for Power to guard at the shooting guard position.
I don’t think that the return of Frazier will do anything about the lack of effort that the Bulldogs are showing in games and practice.
“We haven’t had 15 guys work as hard as they can in practice,” Power said. “We usually only have about seven or eight guys try as hard as they can in practice, and some of them are walk-on’s. (Winning) just isn’t as important to some guys as it is to others.”
If anyone is using Frazier’s injury as an excuse for the losing, it is time to stop. Even before Frazier went out with an injury, the Bulldogs weren’t exactly blowing teams away. They had lost their only two games against ranked opponents and hadn’t beaten a team in the top 50 RPI.
While the loss of Frazier might be a nice, convenient thing to blame MSU’s problems on, it is just the tip of the iceberg. Stansbury seems to be as puzzled as anyone, shuffling people in and out of the game in an attempt to get the best production, to no avail.
I might be wrong. Frazier may come back and all may be right with the world. The team might be inspired by his return and decide to start playing with effort and toughness. If so, please feel free to send me lots of letters telling me how wrong I am. I hope I am wrong.
But don’t be surprised if the return of Frazier just gives false hope, and the real problems the Dawgs have, lack of toughness and leadership, continue to doom this team to yet another early exit from the NCAA Tournament.