re: Did McMahon indicate why Ward didn’t play last night?

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They claim McMahon inherited 0 players while at the same time claiming he doesn’t have his guys on the roster yet 2 years later.

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They are his guys but it’s pretty telling that some ignore the challenge to even put together a team with enough guys to play in the first year. Your best player (Williams) from the first roster was only going to be here 1 season. LSU was getting backup players from other programs from the portal. It wasn’t exactly the most desirable place for talented players to go after the investigation and firing of a coach. The hope would obviously be that we are able to recruit high school talent to develop and have guys that play together for a few years as opposed to having to rely on the portal like we have been forced to do the first two years.

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The hope would obviously be that we are able to recruit high school talent to develop and have guys that play together for a few years as opposed to having to rely on the portal like we have been forced to do the first two years.

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Do you follow college basketball all that much? Reliance on the portal is pretty much how things are done nowadays. It's not college football. There isn't a ton of "building" over the course of multiple recruiting classes any more.

Take Alabama for example since they are the last opponent LSU played. For the 21-22 season they signed 3 HS players. 2 were gone after one season. The 3rd was gone after 2 seasons. Ahead of last year they signed a great 4 man HS class. Only 1 player from that class is on this year's roster.

Look at Auburn. In 21-22 they signed one player, Jabari Smith, Jr. He left for the NBA after one season. The next year they signed 3 players. Two of the 3 left after one season. They have 1 scholarship Freshman on this year's team. That means of the last 3 signing classes Auburn only has 2 of those players on this year's team.

Hell, McMahon already had 2 of the first 4 HS players he signed leave after one season. If his plan is to "recruit high school talent to develop and have guys that play together for a few years" then it is likely that plan will not produce much in the way of significant results because many of those guys won't stay longer than 1-2 years.

You and I may not like it. But that is the new reality.