re: MBB - Everyone starting a thread, here is mine... this loss really sucks.

quote:

---

. Cook right now is a "negative" player. Yes, LSU became a much better team when he became eligible, and that is still the case. But they desperately need him to be more efficient. Being the 2nd leading scorer (12 points) is fine. But he took the second most shots in the game to get it (4-12, 1-6). Worse, he had one assist and five turnovers. In SEC play his assist:turnover ratio is 1:4. That's horrible. Plus, he's a bad defender.

---

Agreed Alt, I think the narrative that LSU's recent upturn was all because of Cook is a flawed one.

Yes, he is the offensive player with the highest upside right now. But I would say more of a reason for our upturn was we started - out of nowhere - rebounding much better and playing with much more toughness. We lost that yesterday.

Hell, the A&M game we won in College Station we won despite him - he did not play particularly well in that game. The win over Ole Miss he had a terrible first half but to his credit played better in the second half and helped us win. Hell in the Auburn game he was a turnover machine and we cut a 28 point lead to 8 with him on the bench. And yesterday he jacked 3 very ill-advised step-back 3's late with the game still very much winnable.

As you say a more efficient Cook is needed if we are going to slip back into can't grab a rebound mode again.