Diff subject - Men’s basketball

ill be completely honest, I dont like basketball. I probably havent watched an NBA or college game in ten years, maybe one or two late tournament games in there though. I am just not interested.

I want LSU to win in every sport, even basketball, thought its pretty far down on my list of priorities.

That said, it is fricking weird as hell that he not only hired this guy, but doubled down on him and gave him more NIL money when it's been totally clear he sucks. Why did an AD known for big name splash hires go after this mid major guy ?

I dont know what McMahon has on SW

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Anyone know anything different?

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As a matter of fact, I do.

This is the year you're speaking of where McMahon got more NIL money to invest in a (hopefully) better roster. McMahon was never close to being fired last year or the year before, because well, I don't have a damn clue why.

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LSU is picked 15th in the SEC and McMahon is still the coach so it’s not looking good for this season either.

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hes 14-40 in SEC play. The front of the schedule is loaded with cupcakes. So he should get some easy wins before playing any real teams. To me the roster doesn’t look much better than last year. Woodward is the real problem, he wil not admit he made a mistake. I don’t trust him on the next hire but he caught lightning in a bottle with Jay Johnson. That’s the only reason he still has a job

Please stop.

There is an exhibition game against UCF this weekend. We may not learn much about the team, but we will at least know some of the players names and the starting 5.

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The reality is you have to pay to play in the sec. I don’t hate CMM or Woodward, it just doesn’t seem to be a high priority with bk, jj, km keeping championship like teams together ever year.

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The discrepancy between what Florida's NIL spending and LSU's is not massive (though Florida's was likely larger). Yet, the results are. Three years after both HCs were hired Florid is the is the reigning National Champion. LSU has been the among the worst major conference programs during that period. Florida's staff was selective about their roster building and got guys that fit what they wanted to do and/or adapted their style of play to fit the roster. McMahon has never seemed to have a plan outside of banal platitudes. He's seemingly flip-flopped each season between building through the portal and building through HS recruiting. Generally speaking, I think he's wanted to build his rosters like he did at Murray State...sign and develop...which is a world that no longer exists in college basketball.

The narrative that conveniently came out late last season only after LSU tanked that it was because of a lack of NIL spending was simply cover to justify the reality that LSU was going to retain McMahon for this season...despite the abysmal 3 year performance. On the surface it made little sense to continue on with a guy who has proven he can't win at this level. So the administration had to give the fanbase something to justify its decision. I'll stand by my opinion that the only reason McMahon is still here is because the push from the AD was to go "all in" on this football season in hopes of a big year. They put a basketball coaching change on the backburner until the end of this season.

It's entirely possible, perhaps likely LSU will be better this season. But that is an extremely low bar to achieve and "better" doesn't automatically = good. Barring a NCAA Tournament appearance, and not just a sneak into the play-in game like Texas last year with a 17-15 (6-12) record (who fired their coach), there will really be no justifiable reason to retain McMahon (if there is one already)

The initial hire was not the "sin". Continuing along with it despite it being clear it is going to work is.

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There is an exhibition game against UCF this weekend. We may not learn much about the team, but we will at least know some of the players names and the starting 5.

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In what is one of the dumbest rules in the NCAA, teams usually will have "secret scrimmages" around this time. By rule, no information about these games is allowed to be disseminated or discussed, but some usually leaks out. Some teams have switched their scrimmages to exhibition games (usually with the funds going to some sort of good cause). That's what LSU is doing Sunday with UCF. It's on TV (ESPN+) if anyone cares to watch.

The point is that while the scrimmages are not exact predictors of the season to come, they often give an early look. For example, LSU has never performed all that well in these scrimmages under McMahon. His reg season results kind of speak for themselves. UCF is picked to finish at/near the bottom of the Big 12. Sunday should give us a little bit of a glimpse into what the season could be.

2 years ago we went 8-8 in the SEC and made it to the NIT. Last year we sucked and our best player got hurt early in the season. This is the season we got a boost in NIL, and we have not played a game so we will see.

Anything else in this thread will just be shitting on a team they don’t know anything about yet

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Would love to see that because I don’t agree. However, if so, you’re still dealing with a better basketball environment. When we hired mcmahon I thought he may have bit unsuited. Still kinda do.

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For the 22-23 season they were ranked 12th of 13th public schools in the SEC.

LINK

It surely increased, but likely not to a massive amount.

But here is an article that shows how they built their championship roster

LINK

Florida's recruiting classes for the first three seasons under Golden didn't rank incredibly high. Go compare them to LSU's. You won't see much discrepancy in the rankings. Yet, Florida had a plan of what they wanted and used analytics (in large part) to fuel it. Kind of like what help a certain coach at a certain school land a largely unheralded 6th man from Cincinnati who would become a lottery pick a year later. His name was Eason. I think LSU just kind of throws things together and hopes for the best

Today, Florida is going to have a very big basketball NIL budget. But I guess that's reasonable given they will be dropping a championship banner in a couple of weeks.