re: MBB Offseason '26 Transfer Portal / HS Tracker

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There’s a mountain of things you can grill McMahon over.. not sure recruiting Dedan and Max is one of them lol they were clearly both SEC level players

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What? I mean so take away the fact you payed an arm and a leg for Dedan. Those two together that match as a backcourt is abject failure in SEC basketball, every year. He did it 3/4 years. You trot out backcourts that cannot on their best days compete.

Boom!!!

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His mistake would be not re-recruiting the roster

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They were not good. Why waste time on players you know can’t play in your system?

Bashir was probably the best 3-pt shooter left in the portal. However, has an EM DBPR of -0.71.

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Ty Rodgers

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Committed to Boise State

That leaves

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Tijan Saine

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as the last publicly known portal guard LSU is linked to.

So with just the reality of the pairing without stats first. You have a 6’0 170lb guard in Thomas from UNLV a once proud program that has fallen on hard times. He was the leading scorer on one of the worst offensive teams in college basketball. He is not athletic for his small stature. Is best described as the liability of liabilities on defense. Then you pair him with Mackinnon who is a 6’5 190lb flame throwing guard coming from Elon and Portland. He is not athletic nor does he play bigger than his size. But he is even more anemic on defense than Thomas but cant use being 6’0 160lb for an excuse.


They both averaged 15ppg and about 2.5 boards, Thomas put up really good assist numbers and is pretty good in space and pace. However when they stepped up into SEC play their numbers drop like a rock. Their EFG went down a lot, in conference play Mackinnon shot under 40% from the field. But both had their 3pt percentages get a lot worse with usage factored in, so Mackinnon in non con shot about 38% that’s pretty good. In conference it drops to 33%, Thomas 3pt% stayed about the same regardless but both shot more in the SEC. But both shoot great from the FT line in SEC play, neither one of them get to the line though. And of course most SEC players numbers and advanced metrics will generally take a hit, step up in competition, more true road games, and generally more focused and prepared scouting. But Thomas and Mackinnon’s drop way more compared to not even every backcourt in the SEC just the bottom 5 teams ahead of us.

The 5 schools ahead of us in the standings they are bad teams but atleast they had competent backcourts. Every one of them has larger tandems in size, more athletic, more experienced as in if they were transferred they came from big programs. Couldn’t be much worse defensively than Thomas and Mackinnon but not only are those 5 backcourts better defensively they aren’t so bad that most teams best day offensively is against them. 4 of those 5 teams backcourts had their best SEC single game performances offensively against LSU.

But again he did it for 3 years. Like we just got Bashir who is a 6’7 guard from Kansas State. I mean that alone is enough.