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Ravern’s hot hand comes at good time |
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Wednesday, 07 January 2009 |
By AARON SEIDLITZ
Starkville Daily News
When gauging young players, Mississippi State basketball coach Rick Stansbury likes to say that you take the good with the bad.
Inconsistency, it seems, is the one consistent thing that coaches get from younger players. So when players like sophomore Ravern Johnson set a career high with 26 points on Monday night – and set a school record for 3-point shooting accuracy – the excitement is usually tempered.
But for one night at least the potential was met with productivity.
“Again, there’s no substitute for experience,” Stansbury said. “One thing we’ll never question is his ability to jump up and make some shots, but making shots in practice and making them in game pressure – under a different kind of stress and different kinds of defenses – is different.”
Against Western Kentucky on Monday, Johnson rarely missed the shots he took. In fact, he only missed one as he went 9-of-10 shooting from the field and 6-of-7 from 3-point distance.
On the season, Johnson is the team’s leader in 3-pointers made with 35, and he is shooting them at a 49.3 percent clip.
The comfortability that he has found has helped the Bulldogs now that they have gone to four guards surrounding center Jarvis Varnado.
The team is moving at a higher pace, shooting more often and that has led to the 95 points scored against the Hilltoppers and the 82 points scored against Houston.
With the youth and the adjustment in philosophy, comfortability became crucial for the team to start clicking.
“Yeah, I think that’s the best we’ve played all year,” Johnson said. “Everybody contributed, the bench contributed, we played good defense, so I think that’s the best we’ve played.”
Outside of shooting from deep, Johnson has shown a knack for getting off other kinds of shots. He has a mid-range jumper and a runner in his arsenal, as well as playing above the rim with his 6-foot-7 frame.
That ability to score in other areas is what Stansbury hopes will keep Johnson a consistent scorer. So far he is just barely trailing Varnado as the team’s leading scorer, with 12.5 scored per contest.
“You know, he’s long and athletic, so he can get his shot off on most people,” Stansbury said. “The thing he has gotten better at is putting that ball on the floor, which will in turn open that jump shot up for him.”
Bost somehow doesn’t register an assist
While the Bulldogs put up this season’s second-best point total on Monday night, the team’s point guard Dee Bost didn’t register an assist.
When he discussed that a day later, Stansbury couldn’t believe it. The coach sat there shaking his head – not in a negative way – because of the statistic.
On a night when the Bulldogs notched 15 assists, Bost had none. Stansbury couldn’t believe this statistic because of the way his guard has been getting in the lane more and distributing the ball.
Especially on Monday night, when State tied a school record with 14 3-pointers, it was hard to believe Bost wasn’t credited with an assist on the evening.
He did, however, score 18 points that evening, which was good enough to even up with Barry Stewart for the second-best output in that game. Johnson led the way with 26 points.
Augustus isn’t playing
Stansbury described it simply as a “coach’s decision,” but sophomore forward Kodi Augustus hasn’t found the court since the game with South Alabama on December 13.
Before that, he had started the first nine games of the season. Then Augustus played seven minutes against South Alabama.
He scored seven points in that game, and he is averaging 7.3 points per game so far this season.
The highest output Augustus has put up this year was 16 points against Texas Tech, when he also had a season-high nine rebounds.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 08 January 2009 )
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