re: What is your MBB excitement level after a 3-1 start to SEC play?

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10-11 SEC wins and an NCAA tourney bid.

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That's probably a bit much.

If they can win on Saturday I think there is definitely a path to 8 SEC wins. After Saturday, 5 of the next 7 are on the road, where it is always tough to win, regardless of opponent. The home games in that stretch are against Arkansas and Alabama. Alabama is a top 10 (analytics) team and Musselman generally finds a way to get his teams better as the season goes along. 8 wins would not be "great" (it's still a losing conference record). But better than expected. The last 6 games of the year are more favorable (4 of those at home against Miss. St, Missouri, Georgia, Kentucky).

I think reasonable best case scenario is LSU gets a win on Saturday to move to 4-1. They somehow find a way to get 2 wins out of the 7 after that to get to 6-6, then maybe find 4 wins of their last six to get to 10-8. However, I don't think it is reasonable to EXPECT that to be the case.

Even if they get to 10 SEC wins a NCAAT spot may be hard to come by because they did nothing of note in non-conf. play. The hope would be (and there is some validity to the thinking) is the committee would essentially look at LSU as two different teams. One without Cook and one with him. The one without him went 6-4 with a bad loss to Nichols and some ugly wins vs. lesser teams. The one with him in that scenario would have gone 12-9 against much tougher competition. The committee takes those things into account.

All told, I think people should just be excited they are competing right now and follow McMahon's advice. Don't wait until LSU starts winning to come out to the games. Come out to the games and be part of the reason they start winning.