Unbeaten Dogs exceeding expectations
By By Tony Krausz / assistant sports editor
Dec. 15, 2003
STARKVILLE Mississippi State University head basketball coach Rick Stansbury wasn't willing to speculate what his team would like in the 2003-04 season before the Bulldogs' first tipoff, and the coach is still hesitant to talk about how good his squad is seven games into the season.
Entering this year, the Bulldogs lost leading scorer Mario Austin, who averaged 15.8 points and 7.8 rebounds per game for the Bulldogs in his junior year, and senior point guard Derrick Zimmerman to the NBA draft. Austin was taken by the Chicago Bulls with the 36th overall pick, and Zimmerman was taken in the draft with the 40th overall pick by the Golden State Warriors.
MSU forward Michal Ignerski also left the Bulldogs via graduation, taking his 9.2 points per game and 4.8 rebounds with him.
And just for good measure, the Bulldogs never found out how good the highly regarded Travis Outlaw would have been in an MSU uniform. The Starkville High School standout was taken with the draft's 23rd pick by the Portland Trailblazers.
Despite the Bulldog coach's gloom-and-doom sentiments before the season, the Bulldogs improved to 7-0 to start the year for the third time in Stansbury's six years at the helm, with a 82-70 win over the Xavier Musketeers on Saturday night in Humphrey Coliseum.
MSU's victory prompted Xavier head coach Thad Matta to wonder why the Bulldogs were not ranked in the Top 25, but Stansbury will have no talk about where his team should be positioned with the rest of the nation's college basketball teams.
The Bulldogs' perfect start to the season has been helped with the arrival of Lawrence Roberts from Baylor.
The junior forward transferred to MSU before the start of the season, and his 21-point, 11-rebound performance against the Musketeers on Saturday was his fifth double-double of the year for the Bulldogs.
MSU guard Timmy Bowers, the team's lone returning starter from last year, added 19 points, five assists and three steals, while only turning the ball over twice against Xavier.
The senior has averaged at team-high 16.6 points for the Bulldogs in the first seven games.
But just like his coach, Bowers will not speculate if MSU, which has appeared in the last two NCAA tournaments, has earned a spot in the national polls.
