re: How didn’t LSU win the NCAA Championship in 89/90?

quote:

---

I think we could have made the Final Four that year. LSU beat UNLV the year before and the year after, but it probably wasn’t happening in 1990.

---

LSU had already beaten UNLV earlier that year. In fact, UNLV would only lose one more time the rest of the season after the LSU loss.

Say what you want about Brown, he never backed down from a big game and was always willing to play anyone...even if it may have been to his team's detriment at times. More than that, look at the 1990 schedule compared to now. I can't recall the last time LSU played a really big non-conf. opponent at home. Maybe #1 Oklahoma in 2016. But that was a part of the Big 12/SEC challenge. Not something LSU scheduled.

LSU played UNLV on a Sunday. They played Florida the day before. Coaches would NEVER schedule that way today. Yet, that was the second time Brown had done it in a week! The weekend before LSU played Notre Dame in the Super Dome before playing Alabama (in Alabama) the very next day.

In the span of nine days between Jan. 20-28, 1990, LSU played: Notre Dame, @ (#25) Alabama, Georgia, Florida, (#5) UNLV. A week later Loyola-Marymount came to the PMAC and played one of the fastest paced games in the history of college basketball.