I think you may be disappointed.

First, LSU is essentially passed the sanctions now as they are pretty menial. Or at least not severe enough to scare off any coaches.

Second, the assumption LSU will hire a "big fish" is premised upon the hires in football, baseball and WBB. However, the leverage/status of those programs are much different that that of MBB.

LSU football has the pedigree and market cache to make a big name hire. BK didn't leave a good job at a great program where he was no doubt being paid very well simply because he likes purple and gold, or because LSU threw a lot of money at him. He left because, at 60, he wants to win a national championship before his coaching days are over. He came to the conclusion that with the recruiting restrictions at ND that was unlikely to happen. However, the odds of him being able to do so at LSU were quite high given the last three HCs at LSU had all done so.

In baseball, there are very few, if any programs in the nation that commit more resources and interest to the sport. If your chosen profession is being a college baseball coach, LSU is a pinnacle job that virtually no one in the marketplace will exceed.

WBB is different. It doesn't have the pedigree in the marketplace as football and baseball. BUT, the marketplace had a HOF, championship winning coach in it that grew up less than an hour a way from BR and had a son attend/play baseball for LSU. That connection is the ONLY reason LSU (Woodward) was able to land Mulkey. Without it she never considers leaving her championship program to come to a lesser program in LSU.

Men's basketball doesn't have that prestige in the maketplace. And last time I checked, there is no "big fish" head coach out there with deep ties to LSU/Louisiana. The absolute closest person to that is Tony Bennett at Virginia...and we've been down that dead-end road again, and again. So to think Woodward is going to hire a "big fish" just because he has in other sports is probably illogical and unreasonable.

LSU basketball gets back to prominence through (likely) one of two avenues.

1. They catch a "fallen star" like Bruce Pearl to Auburn, Kelvin Sampson to Houston, Rick Pitino to St. John's, Chris Beard to Ole Miss, John Calipari to Memphis, even guys like Rick Barnes to Tennessee and Sean Miller (back) to Xavier . Guys that have had big success elsewhere, but for other reasons were forced out of the places where they had that success (often due to NCAA violations/investigations).

2. They "hit" on the right mid-major coach. Oats to Alabama, Musselman to Arkansas, Laranaga to Miami, Hurley to UConn, etc.

The former is more certain, but with less frequent opportunities. The latter had an abundance of opportunities but is FAR less certain.

I said last year the fallen star to catch was Chris Beard after Texas unexpectedly fired him. It would have taken an INCREDIBLY bold move by Woodward to do so both under the circumstances which led to Beard's firing and the fact McMahon was only in year 1 at LSU, so I didn't expect it to actually happen.

However, if LSU is horrible again this season (and the early signs are looking that way), I would take another run at Beard. He's not at Ole Miss because Oxford is just a great place to live. He's at Ole Miss because he desperately wanted a job and Ole Miss provided him one. But anyone with a brain knows he is not long for Ole Miss (historically the worst program in the SEC). He's getting out of there as soon as he can. It's just a matter of where. Is LSU a pinnacle college basketball program right now? No. But its resources and history are FAR more akin to Texas than Ole Miss. That is something any AD could sell to Beard. The problem is whereas last year the market for Beard was very small (which is why Ole Miss landed him), it will be much larger this season after his one-year PR "rehab" stint. Most notably, Louisville is almost assuredly going to be looking for a new coach. And they aren't going to be trolling the Ohio Valley Conference to find one.