re: A big reason we lost last night

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There were opportunities for LSU to to make more assist but instead of dishing it off when driving to the paint Watford and Thomas would shoot instead of dishing it off.

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Story of the season

There are good players on this team, but no player that makes his teammates better.

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The refs made some bad calls both ways

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They were very inconsistent. They would call it tight both ways, then just randomly let them play. I didn't see an advantage to either team with this, but was frustrating to watch (can only imagine how frustrating it was to play like this).

They played like they were overly concerned with Michigan running. Whenever a player (esp Smart) would drive the basket, you would often see 4-5 Mich players but no other LSU players.

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Don’t forget bench points. Michigan had 26. LSU had only 2 the whole game and those came on free throws at the end of the game.

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So tired of people blaming the refs. The above quote is the bottom line we lost. Period.

LSU was at a disadvantage size wise inside.
LSU had a significant size advantage with the guards.
In the first half Thomas shot over his small guard
In the 2nd half for some unknown reason he tried to drive and score on their big men inside. He got zero calls after being mauled constantly, but he kept doing it. If WW would have read the game officiating properly, he would have had Thomas and Days outside shooting wide open threes after Smart and Watford (who couldn't score inside at all) in the second half, especially the last 10 minutes. That is the only way LSU was going to win that game. LSU played right into M's strengths the last 10 minutes of the game, Watford missed 5 FT's, an officiating blunder on the out of bounds gave M 2 points, and the charging foul against Thomas going across the lane, getting bumped hard by a small guard, scoring and having it not count and a charging foul called on him, was just beyond comprehension.,..another 3 points. While I think the best team won, if the above happens, LSU beats the better team, and the better coached team. LSU's last hurrah for a while I'm afraid.

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In the two 4 minute stretches that we lost momentum, it was as if we were just forcing up shots.

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I saw a few forced shots but I also saw some horrible missed calls, especially Cam scoring on what should have been a three point play. Not to mention those two big frickers in the middle throwing bows all night that wasn’t getting called until the final few minutes. Of course we could have played better, but we got robbed period

No one citing Size has answered the question:

Will Bama lose to Michigan?

why did they slow it down at the end of the first half when they had a good lead?

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No one citing Size has answered the question:

Will Bama lose to Michigan?

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I think Bama will win. They don't have a dominant big man, but Bruner has a better shot of slowing down Dickinson than anybody on LSU. But the more important thing is they will actually double in an intelligent manner and rotate correctly after the double. LSU's post defense strategy was directionally correct, but sloppy.

The defensive issues can stem from both personnel AND effort/coaching

Yes, when LSU isn’t scoring it’s usually an indicator that the ball is stuck in someone’s hand. Smart started taking over for the Tigers but no one was helping. No passes no assists. It was Smart driving up and down the court. At least at the beginning of the game Cams points came from assists and off of a half court. This is a more likely scenario with an iso team so you live and die but where the Tigers go south is they cannot pass well enough into clear space for a set shot. That’s what Bama does A Lot better than us and why they don’t have multiple dry spells per game. That and maturity are also why Bama beats Michigan in a matchup in my opinion. They can stretch them and hit open guys for good shots. LSU fell short doing that for stretches last night and THAT is the difference in the game.

Refs didn't cost us game. But down 6 and Thomas gets bumped with what should have been and 1 with under 4 mins. That would have been a huge momentum play in a game decided by momentum runs.
That very play sucked the life out of us.

All in all we played a good game, just couldn't overcome Watford and Days not scoring and a few questionable bad easy calls.