re: LSU admin is proving they don’t care about men’s bball & I’m not even talking about Ws&Ls

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I know it’s not a total excuse but it’s that much harder to build under a cloud like that. And really all of last year, which was year 1, we didn’t know how bad or how long the punishments would be. It makes recruiting (which lsu bball isn’t exactly known for) that much harder.

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Except it didn't

Despite the "shroud of negativity" and "looming sanctions" McMahon actually signed a very solid HS class in his first season. Cam Ward was 4/5 star top 20-30 prosppect (depending on the ranking service). Jalen Reed was a 4 star top 50-60 prospect. Shawn Phillips was a 4 star prospect rated just outside the top 100...with one service ranking him 54th. To date, that is the BEST HS class McMahon has signed. And he did it on the heels of just getting the job and Wade being fired.

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In my mind, this is really year 1

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That's the issue. You have an incorrect impression of both the state of the LSU program and the state of college basketball in general. Total rebuilds can happen literally in one offseason. This isn't an era where a coach takes a team with a depleted roster and has only the JUCO ranks and HS signees available to him to immediately improve. Since the one-free-transfer rule went into effect you are routinely seeing over 1,000 players enter the portal each year. That abundance of players allows coaches to completely change their roster from year to year. And that is in addition to the HS signees and JUCO avenues still available.

Forget where things started in the 2022 offseason. Where they ended was with a roster virtually everyone who followed college basketball for a living felt was good enough to compete in the middle of a very strong SEC. Some even projected LSU as a fringe NCAA Tournament team.

It wasn't that. Or anything close. It was the worst team in the SEC. Were many a bit too bullish on the roster? Probably. But it is a far cry between coming up a bit short of preseason expectations and being one of the worst major conf. programs in America. That is on poor coaching.

So McMahon chose to flip the roster again this year. 8 new players on this roster. Yet, the results are no different. In fact, they are arguably worse. LSU didn't lose, at home, to a Nichols St. type team last season. Nor did they lose in double-digit blowouts to major conf. opponents. K-State is a solid Big 12 team. Syracuse is probably a bottom 1/3rd ACC team this season, but both are comparable to the caliber of opponent LSU will face in the SEC this season. I don't see how anyone can think the early results are encouraging.

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SW deserves the benefit of the doubt from ALL Tiger fans as this point. If CMM ain’t it, he’ll get it fixed.

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Based upon what, exactly? His football, baseball and WBB hires? That is a very illogical way of looking at things. The reason is because LSU MBB does not have the cache in the coaching marketplace that LSU football and baseball have in their respective sports. If you are a college football or baseball coach, LSU is a pinnacle and highly desirable destination in the market. Both have championship pedigrees that have been proven over time.

Now, you can say that isn't the case for WBB...and you'd be right. But the WBB marketplace had something (at least to my knowledge) the MBB doesn't. A HOF, multiple national championship winning coach who happened to grow up roughly an hour away from Baton Rouge, and who also had a son attend LSU. Kim Mulkey doesn't leave the championship caliber program at Baylor that she built to go anywhere...except LSU. That's because LSU had the one thing no other major conf. school could offer Mulkey, including Baylor, home.

That reality makes the LSU MBB job probably the toughest in which to make the "right" hire. A guy with a resume similar to Brian Kelly in football or Jay Johnson in baseball is not leaving their program to come to LSU. Kelvin Sampson, Mark Few, Scott Drew, John Calipari, Mick Cronin, etc, etc, don't need to leave their programs to come to LSU to achieve their goals. In fact, they'd probably be LESS likely to achieve success by coming to LSU.

So that puts LSU in a different marketplace. One where the AD can't just search for the best mid-major resume in the stack and say "Well, there's our guy". Hell, McMahon, who was 31-3 in his final season at Murray St. had the best resume of any of the mid-major HCs hired in the SEC last season. So while there is every reason to have confidence in Woodward in making a football or baseball hire, there is less so in MBB.