re: LSU basketball transfer portal watch

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Everyone talks about poor LSU performed offensively this season (and they were) but doesn't realize they were even worse defensively. That MUST improve drastically or LSU has no shot whatsoever to compete.

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I agree but yet there were some good defensive efforts in the early part of the season - Kansas State, Wake Forest, first Arkansas game, and Kentucky.

For whatever reason, we just fell apart after the Kentucky game and didn't even have much effort in some games. I would really like to know what caused this. Team chemistry fell apart, MM and his staff alienated them or what?

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LSU: “Ronnie Hamilton reaches out. He recruited me last year to come to Ole Miss but it was unfortunate that he left. I really like how he recruited me last year. I like their style of play and how they let their guards hoop. I really like Matt McMahon. I have been talking to him too.”

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Yep. As I said earlier, look for the connections to see if a guy might be a realistic option.

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Recruiting is largely about "connections", but maybe more so in the transfer portal.

McMahon will likely have ties to guys in the southeast/Appalachian area. Particularly guys in conferences like the OVC, SoCon, etc. Cody Toppert (assistant coach) looks like have some connections to the Northeast (LSU was on a few guys from that area in the portal last season). Asst. Coach Ronnie Hamilton came to LSU from Ole Miss. Ole Miss had a few guys enter the portal recently Jaemyn Brakefield (top 50 player who transferred from Duke) and Amaree Abram (PG originally from Texas). Of course, they have a great HC coming in so they may choose to stay.

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Sadly, recruiting against Ole Miss now is no easy task. Beard can point to his tremendous success at Texas Tech and his (for all intents and purposes) Texas team will be playing in the Sweet 16 tomorrow.

Abram was relatively highly ranked (top 110ish) coming out of HS last season, but didn't have an incredibly impressive offer list. He started much of the season for a bad Ole Miss team. His numbers weren't exactly impressive (in conference play) 36% FG. 33% 3FGA, 67% FT%, 1:1 assist/turnover ratio. He was a decent defender (which LSU needs just as much as they need offense), but his offense needs a lot of work.

Still, LSU is unlikely to be a highly desirous transfer destination, so beggars can't be choosers. Hopefully McMahon is taking advantage of some of the same analytics services Wade used in the transfer market.

The service LSU used then projected Eason as a guy with potential all-SEC metrics...even though he wasn't a terribly big name in the portal, and didn't even start at Cincinnati. That service put Wade on him and the analytics were EXACTLY on point. Really intersting story of how LSU got him. He wasn't on LSU's radar until the analytics service identified him. Wade wanted him, but didn't really have a connection to him...until they found out Eason had lived for a bit with LSU signee Bradley Ezriro in California. That's how LSU got a foot in the door and ultimately brought him here.

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Wade is a damn genius. I miss that guy. I’ll always love him.

I just hope he never ends up some place where I’m forced to hate him. Not sure I could handle that emotionally.

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For whatever reason, we just fell apart after the Kentucky game

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two theories

1. the loss of mwani hurt, he plays excellent defense and is an SEC level athlete.

2. teams realized the guards cannot shoot and played off them, preventing easy drives and clogging the lane and ruining the offense

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Wade is a damn genius. I miss that guy. I’ll always love him.

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I doubt Wade was/is the only coach using such a service. But the guy was remarkable in his ability to digest so much of the analytics. Sometimes probably to his own detriment because the game is still played by humans, not statistics and probabilities. Hopefully McMahon can figure out how to marry the analytics with the human element of coaching at this level.

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two theories

1. the loss of mwani hurt, he plays excellent defense and is an SEC level athlete.

2. teams realized the guards cannot shoot and played off them, preventing easy drives and clogging the lane and ruining the offense

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A&M trapped us and exposed our inability to value the ball

Florida then ran our “shooters” off the 3 point line exposing our horrendous 2 point shooting

Other teams then just started piling on when it was clear we had no answers

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All of this. I would add that A&M really exposed our guards on rebounding. We also seemed a bit "shook" at that point. We had thought we knocked off one of the better SEC teams then along came A&M and Florida who were not much thought of at the time. Then Bama of course.

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Sometimes probably to his own detriment

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Can think of a few times we let teams back in games and made them interesting because he stuck with the 1-3-1 too long even though the other teams couldn’t make a shot.

Agreed. I think the remaining players are players that can be built around and showed good potential throughout the season. The four that entered the portal imo were completely expected and necessary. Anyone else and it starts raising concerns

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I’ll always love him.

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Not sure I could handle that emotionally.

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Weird.

Yea given his relationship with Hamilton I’d have to think he’s ours if we want him and it appears we do