re: Thoughts on the basketball game last night...good overall win

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IMHO you see flashes and glimpses of good play, just enough to let you know we are capable, but kinda cruise and lose focus just as much or more. And to me that's what we've always been under CJJ.

I wish that were different but to me it's been a pretty consistent thing IMHO.

This team has talent. Rieth is and SEC big man, and Victor is solid and even better with his compliment in there.

Blakeney, still inconsistent, but very talented, could have played anywhere in the country he wanted. Sampson was a top 50 recruit who came out of the gate like gangbusters last year than disappeared. He has skills.

So it's not like were this poor, talent-less overachieving team that's milking everything we have.

We can compete with what we have, especially in the down SEC. I'm skeptical because of my perception of the culture I've seen of the program, but I do want to see us when and I hope the kids can prove my perception wrong.

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This.

Talent in the starting 5 is not the problem. LSU has 4 top 100 recruits + a Juco transfer who has exceeded ALL expectations. There are several coaches in the SEC alone who would kill for that starting line up. But I agree that consistency is this team's biggest problem. You get the feeling they play hard only when they have to, especially on defense. Once the game was tied last night they ratcheted up the energy on defense, but you're not always going to get away with doing that (especially on the road).

I'm not necessarily worried about this team being able to score at this point. JJ's teams have always been inefficient on offense, but they find ways to put the ball in the basket which is obviously the most important thing. The one concern on offense right now is the assist are way down from previous years and it's more one-on-one than maybe ever before. That's ok when you are clearly more talented man-for-man than your opponent, but it can be a death knell when you run into a team that locks you up (like Wichita St. did)

In the end though, this team is going to go as far as their defense will take them. Right now, it doesn't look great. Opponents are absolutely blowing by the guards on the perimeter. That puts a ton of stress on Victor and Reath who LSU obviously can't afford to have sitting on the bench in foul trouble. Just putting more emphasis in getting in better defensive position on the perimeter would do wonders for this team. Unfortunately, we've been saying that for going on 5 years now and it rarely happens.

Talent-wise this team can hang with anyone when they put it together. The OOC schedule is horribly weak again, so winning at Wake Forest is almost a must. LSU's best OOC win away from home is Old Dominion. Road wins over good teams are HUGE. It's big reason why an 11-7 LSU team made the NCAAT in 14-15 while an 11-7 LSU team didn't sniff the NCAAT last season. Wake and Texas Tech are the last two chances to pick up great OOC wins. If they lose both, then I think they would probably need to win at least 13 SEC games to have a prayer at the tournament. That's unlikely.

They aren't exceeding expectations (they've beat everyone they should beat), but they aren't underwhelming either.