re: MBB : Early conference play opinion

The program's ultimate goal should ALWAYS be to compete for national championships. Now, that's not to say that should be the expectation for this year, or even next. But that is the standard every coach should be judged by....are we progressing towards that ultimate goal? If not, are we just wasting our time in the current state?

Even at his best I never thought Jones was a coach that could progress the program to that goal. That's why I thought from day 1 the Jones tenure was going to be as waste of time. While not a terrible first 5 years by any means, LSU wasn't ever on any path to win big. That was confirmed when the Simmons season was a complete bust after so much build up.

Wade wasn't there yet either. But there were at least glimmers of hope the program could possibly get there under him. That hope coming from the fact he was recruiting at a high level (the 2022-2023 class was on pace to be one of, if not his best at LSU before he was fired). He delivered one of the best regular seasons in nearly 40 years in just his second season on the job. Most notably (but for 2020) he would have led LSU to the most consecutive NCAAT appearances in a long time,

McMahon wasn't going to compete for anything big last season. Everyone knew that. But the results were far worse than any reasonable person expected. This season didn't look to be too much better until 2.5 weeks ago. Now there is a bit of hope. Is that just early season fools goal? Or is it something real? We'll find out over the next 2 months.

I think just a few more SEC wins guarantees McMahon's return for next season. But at the end of this season my thought process will be: "is LSU trending to be comparable to programs such as Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, etc...ALL programs who, with the right HC, LSU could very much be equal to? Or is the program trending more towards Vanderbilt, Georgia, South Carolina level? Programs that can have some marginal success here and there, but never consistently sustain it. If it looks more like the latter then the argument can start to be made that LSU is wasting their time with McMahon because they are unlikely to become a great program under him. And if you feel the likelihood of LSU ever becoming great under McMahon is low, then why continue to spin your wheels? And I say that as someone who WANTS to see McMahon succeed. My self-worth is not tied into winning a message board debate re: McMahon vs. Wade.