Bulldogs anticipate the start of practice
Mississippi State head men’s basketball coach Ben Howland doesn’t need a Delorean filled with special plutonium to get Back to the Future.
He is having his own experience with the past right here in the year 2020.
With the NCAA’S announcement on Wednesday that the college basketball season will start on November 25 and with practice beginning on October 14, it takes Howland back to his early days of coaching.
“It used to be where we started the Friday after Thanksgiving and we started practice on October 15,” Howland said on Thursday during a video conference with the media. “I like that the NCAA allowed us four extra hours per week the three weeks prior to practice, so now we’ll have 12 hours with four of weight training and eight of on-the-floor activities with basketball leading up to the 14th start for us.”
The Bulldogs will be able to play 27 games, so that’s going to be four fewer than recent seasons.
MSU was originally scheduled to play Clemson in the Cancun Challenge on November 24, but that matchup with the Tigers will have to be pushed back one day to meet the November 25 start date.
Howland is not complaining. He is just happy about the prospects of getting the Bulldogs back on the court again, especially with the way last season ended.
MSU had just beaten instate rival Ole Miss at Humphrey Coliseum to end the regular season and had a double bye for the Southeastern Conference Tournament before the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic stopped the action in March.
“It was just devastating and heartbreaking to see how our season finished the way it did last year without a real finish,” Howland said. “We
had put ourselves in the best position since I’ve been here as coach with a double bye in the SEC Tournament, so that’s something I’ll always regret that we didn’t get to play those games.”
When the Bulldogs do get back together again, there will be no Reggie Perry, no Robert Woodard II, no Tyson Carter and no Nick Weatherspoon. Abdul Ado and Jalen Johnson are the only two seniors on the roster, then everyone else is either sophomores or freshmen.
Howland is looking forward to seeing what his young team can do, but understands it will take some work to get MSU ready.
“There is so much to put in before we open up our season against Clemson,” Howland said. “There are no easy games for us.
“I’m excited about
this group. They have done a phenomenal job in terms of the weight room, conditioning, strength training and have done a great job on the floor for us. We can’t keep the gym open for them long enough because of the COVID protocols which I hope will loosen up as we get closer to real practice.”
Mississippi State Soccer heads to Auburn to kick off the 2020 season, the Mississippi State athletic year, as well as the Southeastern Conference slate. The match is set for today at 6 p.m. and will be broadcast on the SEC Network.
“We’ve had a great deal of time in preseason to fine-tune some things and not rush through what we’ve wanted to work on,” MSU head soccer coach James Armstrong said. “We’re excited to finally play a different team other than ourselves. It’s a really difficult team to prepare for to be honest. They have a really good 2020 class coming in which I know they’re excited about. I have familiarity with them since I helped recruit a number of those players, but just like with any freshman, you never know until you see them play in a meaningful game.”
This will be Armstrong’s second time meeting his former team on the field, but this time he has a win under his belt. State defeated the Tigers at home last season in a 3-1 win.
Mississippi State’s roster is made up of 32 players, including 18 returners and 14 newcomers, which includes nine freshmen and five transfers. One of those transfers, junior Alyssa D’aloise, was selected as one of the three captains by her peers. D’aloise, senior Kristen Malebranche and junior Andrea Tyrrell will be leading their team in the 2020 season.
The Bulldogs bring back four of their top five scorers from last season, including Monigo Karnley, Onyi Echegini, Hailey Farringtonbentil, and Niah Johnson. Amongst those four, they have a total of 106 shots, 47 shots on goal, 14 goals, 36 points, and eight assists.
MSU finished off 2019 with a record of 8-8-3 in Armstrong’s first season, and made it to Orange Beach, Alabama, for the SEC Tournament for the first time since 2004.
In other soccer news released Thursday morning, Echegini, Tyrrell, Johnson and Miranda Carrasco have been chosen to the SEC soccer coaches’ preseason watch list.
This is the second time that juniors Carrasco and Johnson have been named to the list, and the first time for sophomore Echegini and junior Tyrrell.
Carrasco started all 19 matches in 2019 and found herself as one of three players to play a full match 16 times that season and play every minute of Conference play. With her 3 assists last season, she ranks as the No. 11 in career history with 10 total assists. She scored her first career goal against Alabama while taking two shots.
Echegini enters her second season in a Mississippi State uniform having played in 14 of the 19 matches last season and was given the starting nod seven times. The Londoner found her first career goal in her first start against Auburn. She went on to score in three consecutive matches starting with the match against Georgia, which tied the sixth-longest scoring streak in program history.
Johnson led her team in minutes last season, playing 1,756 in total while starting every match. She joins Carrasco as one of three Bulldogs who played a full match 16 times and saw every minute of Conference play time. Johnson broke the career penalty kicks record with her fourth coming at the SEC Tournament against Ole Miss, and finished the season with three goals, all off penalty kicks; an MSU single-season record.
Tyrrell enters her junior season for the Bulldogs having played every position except goalkeeper in 2019. For the 2020 season, she has found her home as a center back. She was voted in as one of three captains by her peers after finishing the previous season having played 16 full matches and every minute of Conference play while taking 18 shots and five shots on goal.