Mississippi State Basketball

Whether or not Andy Kennedy just arrived in 2008 via Delorean or transporter, he didn't realize the name Bin Laden was perched with the "Whole Terrorism thingy".

Police arrested Mississippi men's basketball coach Andy Kennedy early Thursday after a cab driver said the coach punched him while calling him "bin Laden" and other racial insults.

A pretrial hearing has been set for Jan. 16. Kennedy was charged with a first-degree misdemeanor count of assault, which would carry a maximum sentence of six months in jail if he is convicted.

Kennedy stated,

I didn't realize someone calling a guy Bin Laden mean't I was making a racial slant. I call my guys Pol Pot's all the time and I don't think they are Khmer Rouge leaders. It's just crazy when you call someone a name and they immediately think you're a racist hick. Who hasn't punched a cabbie in his/her life. Seriously, If I had a nickel.

I just want to get back to coaching basketball and put this whole incident behind me. All the people at the University know that I am no longer affiliated with the Klan or any white power organizations since early 2003. It's not like I am being a Jew or something.

The man Kennedy Allegedly punched, Jiddou, a 25-year-old native of the northwest Africa country of Mauritania, told reporters that the altercation broke out after Kennedy hailed him and then asked him to pick up his friends. When four other people tried to get in, Jiddou said, he told them he couldn't take that many because he only had four seat belts.

Jiddou said Kennedy then began yelling, cussing him and calling him "bin Laden, Saddam Hussein," and hit him in the face. Police said the left side of Jiddou's face was swollen; at his northern Kentucky home more than 12 hours later, he had no apparent injuries and said he wasn't hurt physically but was upset to be compared to the terrorist leader.

A friend of Jiddou explains what happens here~

Speights, Randolph declare for Draft, will not hire agents 

Floridasophomore forward Marreese Speights and LSU freshman forward Anthony Randolph are both looking to test their luck in the NBA lottery.

Neither one has hired and agent, make a return for their respective next season possible. 

Speights averaged 14.5 points per game for the Gators this season, good enough for second on a team who made it to New York this season for the NIT Semi-finals.  To go with his 14 points, Speights had 8.1 rebounds a game and 49 blocks on the season, averaging just under 25 minutes a game. 

In an average of 32 minutes of play, Randolphaveraged 15.6 ppg, 8.5 rpg, and 70 blocks on the season.  Randolph was a leader for a LSU team in turmoil for most of the season, leading the team in rebounding and being second in points per game. 

Hansbrough looking to transfer from Mississippi State, no school named as favorite 

Mississippi State sophomore guard Ben Hansbrough has made it known that he will transfer out of Starkville. 

Hansbrough, the Bulldogs leader in free throw percentage and three point percentage, has not named his possible new location nor given a hint as to where he may go. 

MSU head coach Rick Stansbury cited that Hansbrough was leaving because he feels that he can’t “be the best basketball player” he possibly can at State and a lack of suitable practice facilities.

“As simple as that may sound, that’s a huge thing for me,” Hansbrough said in reference to the practice facilities.  “That has a lot to do with it right there.”

“Ben is a good kid and we wish him the best of luck in his future endeavours,” Stansbury said in a statement.

 Alabama faces potential problems amid transfers, draft declarations 

The off-season has already been a tumultuous one for the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Two of the team’s potential stars for next season, forward Richard Hendrix and guard Ronald Steele, have both declared for the NBA draft, but neither have hired an agent. 

Steele will return as long as he is not ensured of a first-round pick.  He missed this whole season recovering from off-season knee surgery.

Hendrix, a member of the 1^st team All-SEC team, was the only player in the SEC this season to average a double-double. 

Not only does the Tide face these potential departures, two guards have also voiced the desire to transfer.

Freshman Rico Pickett and sophomore Justin Tubbs have both said they will not return to the team next season.

Pickett was suspended indefinitely for the second time in his short tenure at Alabama on Sunday night.  The very next day, his father had said that he would transfer.

“Nothing possibly that (head) Coach (Mark) Gottfried can talk about can make me come back,” Pickett told the Decatur Daily, his hometown newspaper.

Tubbs, who was mysteriously benched this season, has informed the coaching staff that he will be changing schools for next season.

Rumor has it that Gottfried decided in the middle of the season to try and run off either Tubbs or Pickett to save a scholarship next season for Ron Steele.  Now, Gottfried may be without all three of them.

Counting those four players, as well as the three graduating seniors, the Tide may lose half of their team from last season.  If this holds true, Alabama would lose 41.3 points of the 75.3 they averaged last season.

The Tide’s incoming recruiting class is #11 according to rivals.com right now, with three players in the top 50 nationally coming to the Capstone next season. 

Charles Rhodes scored 34 points to lead Mississippi State's dominant post play past Oregon in the first round.

What was noticeable, though, was the lack of offensive production from most other members of the Bulldog team. This will have to change if the Bulldogs hope to beat 1-seed Memphis on Sunday.

The Bulldogs face an opponent who has only lost one game, being to SEC foe Tennessee. However, they also face an opponent whose only real competition in the last three months was that one team that they lost to.

So let's break down the key matchups, shall we?

The Big Men: Memphis boasts some very athletic big men in Robert Dozier and Joey Dorsey. Dorsey also has a large 265 pound frame, but he doesn't exactly do much in terms of offense. Dozier is the third leading scorer on the team, but he only averages 9.4 points a game.

Mississippi State will match that by putting Jarvis Varnado on Dozier. Varnado, of course, is the nation's leading shot blocker, and will most likely cause Dozier fits. Charles Rhodes (who is about 35 pounds heavier than the lanky Varnado) is now the team's leading scorer, and with 17.5 ppg and a great deal of versatility, he will give the larger Dorsey quite a difficult defensive task. Rhodes can, after all, take it from anywhere within the arc, so don't be surprised if you see him bust out a few rare crossovers to blow right past the defender.

Also, don't forget that Rhodes isn't all offense. I wouldn't be alarmed if I see him frustrating Dozier or even covering Chris Douglas-Roberts.

Rose and Gordon: Obviously, this is the premiere match-up. You see the freshman phenom going up against the All-SEC 1st teamer. Rose averages 14 a game, Gordon 17. Neither of them really focus much on the three pointer, either, so that makes them fairly even. However, Gordon does out-weigh Rose by about 20 pounds (of muscle) and he will use that to his advantage. I don't really see these guys doing too much besides canceling each other out, though.

The X-Factor: The obvious key to victory will be whether or not State can stop Chris Douglas-Roberts. Roberts is an interesting person to have the a team like Memphis because he is a very solid basketball player, and not just a great athlete.

The thing is, though, that he will probably be matched up against Ben Hansbrough. Hansbrough has the ability to score 20 points, but doesn't do that often, so Roberts won't have to worry about guarding him too much. However, Ben is the most tenacious defender on the Mississippi State team, even more constantly active than Varnado. He may be shorter than Roberts, but look to him to challenge every shot and come up with several defensive stops and steals.

The Bottom Line: Rhodes will more likely than not continue his beastly scoring streak, and I see him outscoring Dozier and Dorsey if he has the chance. Gordon and Rose will be going at each other and most likely trying too hard all night. Hansbrough will try as hard as he can to stop Roberts, and the Memphis bench will have to really pick up the slack on offense, which they are more than capable of doing.

If Barry Stewart and Ben Hansbrough find their shot, however, I think you'll see Mississippi State shocking the nation. Just watch those two and three guard matchups to be the deciding point.

Memphis hasn't faced but one strong opponent in several months. I think they're just a little too out of practice and a little too overrated to pull one out against a highly motivated Mississippi State ball club.

The journey to simply get to the NCAA Tournament was difficult enough for the Mississippi State Bulldogs, but now they face even more challenges going into their first round matchup on Friday.

The Bulldogs, an eight seed in the South regional, have to face a sharp shooting Oregon team. If they succeed, they will have the envious task of facing No. 1 seed Memphis, whose only loss came to an SEC foe.

State started the year off losing five non-conference games, which caused March to look much farther away. After winning the SEC's Western Division, however, the tourney seemed much more likely.

Then came the SEC Tournament.

A tornado rocking the Georgia Dome added some excitement to an already rough overtime victory over Alabama, who State had little trouble with during the regular season. Of course, they soon fell to the "destined-for-greatness" Georgia Bulldogs in a game in which MSU was simply out-hustled.

Now, the Bulldogs face the Oregon Ducks, who made it into the NCAA tournament after only winning 18 games.

The trigger happy Ducks are led by guard Malik Hairston, who averages 16.1 points per game and shoots 43.8 percent from 3-point range.

Along with him is 6-9 forward Maarty Leunen, who shoots 50.9 percent beyond the arc.

The Bulldogs are built upon defense, however, something Oregon doesn't always seem to know about. While they average 77 points per game, they also give up 72.

Hairston and fellow guards Tajuan Porter and Bryce Taylor will easily match the points scored by the Bulldogs backcourt, but will most likely only score from outside. Unless the Ducks miraculously find an interior presence, they won't be able to deal very well with the beastly offense of Charles Rhodes or the defensive power of Jarvis Varnado.

In the end, State's guards are good enough defensively to counter Oregon's offense. After all, this is a Mississippi State team that is second in the nation in scoring defense.

Oregon, however, doesn't have the size and skill inside to counter what Mississippi State is capable of doing down low.

All of this, of course, depends on whether we see the Mississippi State team that won their division of the SEC or the one that didn't quite show up to the SEC tournament. 

My prediction: Mississippi State in a close one.

And then we'll worry about Memphis.

After a five year absence, the Mississippi State Bulldogs are back in the NCAA Tournament as the ultimate sleeper pick. They are coached by Rick Stansbury, who is in his 10th year at MSU, and is appearing in his fifth NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs finished the regular season 22-10, No. 2 in the SEC.

The Bulldogs raised some eyebrows with what was reported as a nationally televised SEC showdown win against Kentucky. It should have been reported as it was viewed, by this sports fan, a meet-the-nation game by a little known sophomore, Jarvis Varnado. He was basically everywhere—scoring, rebounding and swatting enough shots to have the entire Kentucky team leave Starkville, MS with a maroon and white T-Shirt that reads “ I went to MSU and had my shot blocked by Jarvis Varnado” on the front.

Varnado stands 6’9”, which isn’t all that uncommon, but his 7-4 wingspan is a unique weapon for the Bulldogs and another reason opponents are shooting just 36.9 percent from the field. Varnado leads the nation with 4.8 blocks per game, and in six games this season he has had more blocked shots than points.

Every time Jarvis Varnado rejected another Kentucky shot he could feel Mississippi State gaining strength. It happened often.  Varnado finished the game with a Triple-double that included 10 blocked shots. Any time you earn a triple-double in a game it is impressive and you clearly had an impact on the game but when you do that and blocked shots are included makes the feat that much more impressive.

“He changes the game around the rim,” Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury said.

Adding to the mix for the Bulldogs is the stellar play of Jamont Gordon and Charles Rhodes leading four players who average more than 10 points. For those who aren’t familiar with the Mississippi State Bulldogs, Jamont Gordon is the star. Shot-blocking Jarvis Varnado is the show. But Charles Rhodes has grown into an offensive terror since Valentine’s Day, averaging 22.1 points per game on 57.1 percent shooting. Rhodes sudden improvement has made the Bulldogs increasingly dangerous.

This leads me into the 8 Mississippi State vs. 9 Oregon match up, in the first round of the Tournament. Oregon is one year removed from a Regional Final appearance traveling south to Little Rock, Arkansas to take on MSU. I view MSU as a solid team and OU as a good but up and down team. Several people didn’t think the Ducks would make it to the NCAA’s but here they are ready to make a return to the Elite Right.

The Ducks have experience, they’ve been there before, and have been playing better of late. The Ducks return four players all averaging better than 12 points per game. The knock on them is their defense or lack thereof. The Ducks' calling card is their shooting the three. Their defensive FG percentage is horrible so it is a matter of can they consistently knock down enough three-point shots to advance.

The Ducks have played up and down in the Pac-10, which is a strong conference—one of the toughest in the nation. The Ducks can stoke it but they haven’t been consistent. The edge goes to Mississippi State whose calling card is defense and solid team play. They're big, strong, physical team with great guards that will overwhelm the Ducks and send them home defeated.     

When looking across the spectrum of teams that qualified for the Big Dance this year, very few managed to have more than one first-team all-conference performer. Of the teams that did, many of the schools are familiar to the casual observer: Kansas, Tennessee, Connecticut, Indiana.

But another team managed to duplicate this feat and they're from a major conference. They've won 22 games this season. And yes, they have two first-team all-conference performers.

They are the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

And they may have a big say in this year's tournament.

Led by senior forward Charles Rhodes and junior point guard Jamont Gordon, the Bulldogs rebounded from a pedestrian 5-5 start to finish the season at 21-9. They split a couple of games in the SEC Tournament, which limited them to an eight seed and a potential second-round matchup with the formidable Memphis Tigers.

The Bulldogs are unlikely to be fazed by this development, however. The team tends to play to the level of its opposition.

While that has made for some gut-wrenching narrow escapes (and a few losses), it has also given Bulldog fans every reason to be confident that they can play with anyone in the nation.

Rhodes and Gordon are huge reasons why. The dynamic duo combined for over 34 points per game this season. Gordon is a 6-4, 230-pound specimen who creates plenty of mismatches for opposing point guards. He averaged nearly five assists and 6.3 rebounds to go along with his team-leading 17.3 points per game.

Rhodes, however, stepped into his senior leadership role and absolutely carried the team down the stretch. He comes in just behind Gordon at 16.7 points per game, while pulling down nearly eight rebounds per contest. He had nine double-doubles this season, giving the Bulldogs an impressive inside-outside combination.

Amazingly, neither of these players have grabbed as much national notoriety as the beast in the middle of the paint. Sophomore Jarvis Varnado is the nation's top shot-blocker at 4.6 per game. Three times this season, "Swat", as he has become known, rejected 10 shots in a single game.

He also recorded a triple-double against Kentucky earlier in the year, an accomplishment that landed him at the top of SportsCenter's 10 best plays. Varnado leads the team in rebounding as well.

While not as deep or as athletic as Memphis, State has the weapons and the defensive presence to rattle the Tigers. And if they can keep the game close, they can probably count on some missed Tigers free throws to help matters.

Obviously, nothing is guaranteed. State has a tough first-round matchup with Oregon. But their advantage down low should be enough to push them past the Ducks and into the regionally attractive matchup with Memphis.

Once there, anything can happen, and the Bulldogs have some fun pieces to their team that could give the Tigers more than they bargained for.

In the middle of an SEC Tournament basketball game between Mississippi State and Alabama, a severe storm ripped two panels off the side of the Georgia Dome, and punctured a hole in the roof.

The game had 2:11 left in overtime, a very tense mood prevailed over the game because of the tight score: 64-61 in favor of Mississippi State.

Suddenly, a very loud crash was heard from inside the dome, and the girders near the roof started to swing. There was also debris falling from the newly inserted hole in the Dome's canopy.

Fan Tyler Williams described the blast like this:

"It sounded like a freight train...the rafters were swaying, and the roof of the dome was starting to ripple...it was a little frightening to say the least."

SEC officials immediately sent players, coaches, and the family of the coaches into the locker rooms, and began the process of evacuating the fans near the top of the stadium.

Over an hour later, the overtime game between Mississippi State and Alabama was resumed, resulting in a Mississippi State victory. The game that was scheduled between Georgia and Kentucky was postponed.

SEC officials are attempting to determine whether or not more games can be held in the punctured Georgia Dome. The National Weather Service predicts more bad weather coming into Atlanta for the next few days, and officials aren't sure if the Dome can take any more damage.

SEC spokesman Charles Bloom sums up the situation:

"That's one of the issues we're talking about, whether we can still be in the building...there's more bad weather coming and we're not sure what those [storm] cells will bring."

Bloom also said that a decision wouldn't be made until Saturday morning. 

There doesn't seem to be a need to worry about not having the time to complete the tournament, as officials seem to have that worked out. They could have two games played on Saturday: the quarterfinal game in the morning, then the winner could play in the semifinal game against Mississippi State later that night.

A problem that remains is where to host these games.

One possibility is the adjoining Philips Arena, home of the Atlanta Hawks. (The Hawks were able to finish their 7:30 pm game against the Los Angeles Clippers without any harm from the storm.)

One unlikely possibility would be to actually move Selection Sunday back a few days to allow for this SEC conference tournament to finish up before the NCAA filled out the brackets, but I highly doubt that.

Both teams continued their ways on Saturday afternoon in Tuscaloosa as the Bulldogs rode some hot three-point shooting and some late Alabama miscues to secure their 66-56 win on the road. 

The Bulldogs built a 33-28 halftime lead to 13 with 12 minutes left in the game, but in true fashion, the Crimson Tide wouldn’t go away. 

The Tide cut the lead to 4 points with 8 minutes and 4 minutes to go, but State kept their composure and limited Alabama to just one point in the final two and a half minutes.  The Bulldogs caused some turnovers and capitalized on them to keep their lead the entire second half.

The Bulldogs rode the play of Jamont Gordon, who had 24 points for State in 34 minutes of play, and the ability to make the outside shot. 

“When you’re hot, you’re hot, I guess,” Gordon said after the game.

There is no doubt that MSU was hot, hitting 12-26 shots from downtown.  They became the second straight Tide opponent to score at least half their points from behind the arc.  Georgia scored 30 of their 61 points from 3-point range.

Alabama was once again led by Richard Hendrix.  Hendrix scored 21 points, a team high, but failed to build on his league leading double-doubles, only pulling down six rebounds.  Alonzo Gee scored 10 points, the only other Tide player in double figures. 

One player that Alabama has been missing the past few games is Mykal Riley. 

Riley scored only five points.  In his past two games, Riley has only scored 15 points and made 1 of 10 shots from downtown.  On the season, he has averaged 13 points per game and shot 42% from three point range. 

Jarvis Varnado, the NCAA leader in blocked shots, was a non-factor going up against Richard Hendrix.  Varnado had two points, four fouls and no blocked shots against the Tide big man.

An early morning snow kept many Alabama fans and students from attending the game, but Mississippi State fans could not be kept away.   

The Bulldogs had a good representation in Tuscaloosa on Saturday.  The two campuses are the closest together in the SEC, only 80 miles apart.

Right now, Alabama is off to their worst start ever under head coach Mark Gottfried at 0-4. 

“We just can’t finish for some reason,” Hendrix said.  “We have to come together.  When you are 0-4, you have to come together.”

At 4-0, Mississippi State is off to the best start in the SEC, sitting atop the Western Division.

“We’ve got so much confidence right now,” said Gordon.  “Before we were hoping we could win.  Now we know we can win.”

Alabama will look to finally get in the win column next Saturday against in-state rival Auburn after a week off.  Mississippi State will also take a week off before playing their in-state rival Ole Miss.  Both teams will play their next games at home.

Two and a half years ago something happened to one of the greatest people in the world of college basketball. 

Bob Huggins' latest DUI was a blessing in disguise for the University of Cincinnati.

Not only would they have a perfectly okay reason to get rid of the coach who had graduated less than five percent of his basketball players, but also the guy that would replace him was primed and ready to coach in big-time college basketball.

Enter Andy Kennedy.

Kennedy, the former UAB shooting guard would lead his former team’s rival on the court as head basketball coach of the University of Cincinnati.  Kennedy was an assistant under Huggins from 2001 to 2005 and was his recruiting coordinator so-to-speak.

Finally, Kennedy's coaching career had reached a pinnacle. The guy who started at the University of South Alabama twelve years prior had finally gotten his dream job.

That season as interim coach for the Bearcats, his team went 21-13, 8-8 in the Big East and made an appearance in the NIT quarterfinals at Madison Square Garden.  

However, at the end of the season, despite strong student and alumni support, UC President Nancy Zimpher and Athletics Director Mike Thomas opted to not give Kennedy the permanent head coaching position.

His dream job was no longer his job. What could Kennedy do? 

With his success at Cincinnati, Kennedy didn’t have to look for jobs. Jobs began looking for him. And when the Ole Miss Rebels came calling, Kennedy answered.

Last season, the Rebels made vast improvements in their basketball program.  Kennedy took a team that had previously won 14 games to the SEC tournament and a berth in the NIT, where the Rebels made a second round appearance before falling to Clemson.

This season, the Rebels are sitting at 14-1, losing only to seventh ranked Tennessee on the road at the buzzer. 

Kennedy has matured into a great coach to go along with his great personality.

He was named the 2007 SEC Coach of the Year, and it couldn't have happened to a better guy.