re: Hate McMahon all you want…if you can’t see the improvement you’re blind

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Who ran him off? One year after his final four year, he was fired.

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Two years after. In the first year after the Final Four run LSU opened the season No. 5 in the nation on the heels of returning 3 of 5 starters from the Final Four team. Including reigning SEC POY, Glenn Davis. He led that team to a last place (SEC West) finish. Brady just did what Brady always did at LSU...fluctuate from really good to really bad.

It was the next season that he had the injury issues (most notably, Tasmin Mitchell). But by that time he had rubbed the administration the wrong way. He immediately tried to leverage LSU for a big contract after the Final Four run by "getting interest" from NC State and he was ALWAYS acerbic when faced with any criticism. He felt the fans/school were unappreciative of his Final Four run because they criticized him for falling flat on his face the year after.

The admin had been very patient with Brady's roller coaster results and a-hole personality for a decade. But that Final Four appearance gave him, what he thought, was the gravitas to tell everyone to frick off when he followed it up by losing. Which is why it came to a complete shock to him when he was fired in the middle of the 07-08 season, and we got his sobbing press conference. Brady's ego was always his worst enemy.

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The reality is in this era of college basketball is improvement isn’t linear because there is so much roster turnover from year to year.

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Exactly Alt, that's why I keep coming back to improvement and development during the season being the key indicator.

Alot of folks say last year was a waste year, you can judge nothing from that nor should anyone, Mascona says that every time basketball comes up on his show. We've debated that alot here...whatever end you come out on anyone claiming anything other than regression and underachievement last year IMHO is very simply rationalizing.

Now this year up until the start of conference play, was looking like a repeat, but I have seen some improvements and some development. Let's see if that continues, for me that's the tell on how we can fairly evaluate CMM.

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Not to be the sower of doubts, but UT game was likely just the start of a rough stretch here.

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Oh there's no doubt. It's no shame to say there are 2 or 3 teams maybe 4 in the conference we just can't compete with, probably even at home. The rest IMHO we can be at least competitive with, and several we are better than.

But you can still recognize and evaluate individual and collective improvement and development and use it as a measure to have a reasonable opinion and judgement on how CMM is doing regardless of the talent one thinks we do or don't have.

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McMahon does NOTHING to bring excitement. No WINs. No outreach to fans across State. No passion during games. NOTHING.

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And this could easily be replaced with winning, but at a .571 win percentage, he doesn't even have that.

But the simps want you to make up excitement about him.

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We have talent to a degree but obviously something is missing.

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"Talent to a degree" is spot on. McMahon has only been able to sign pretty much what I call "low 4*" players. Using the recruiting services ordinal ranking of prospects since I don't have my own in BB like I do in FB, LSU is signing guys like ranked #65, #78, #97, #119, #77, etc. Only Ward #41 was in top 50 of his class. Remember that the services say there are only 100 4* or above. Where is the John Williams type guy...where is the Chris Jackson type...where even is the Tremont Waters type player...where is the Naz Reid type prospect, etc. The bottom line which explains some of the lack of success in the McMahon era is he has yet to attract that player with the "it" factor...the stud player than can turnaround a game. Instead he has a bunch of mediocre players trying to compete against teams who probably have at least of those type guys.

I purposely left out Ben Simmons BTW in examples because by his own admission, he didn't want to even go to college which showed in his lack of effort in LSU BB games.

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why did we have to get rid of a proven coach

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Because he was a dumbass

I think that's a good point MK, I actually think McMahon has been solid this year in conference, ooc I thought it was pretty bad. And I think he knows ball. But I often wonder does he know SEC ball. Just look at the types of players on bama/Auburn/ when arky was good.

I think Baker is a good example, he's got a lot of skill but when it comes to that explosiveness/raw strength that all good SEC teams have he just doesn't have it And I often shite on baker here but let me also add he's played well the last two games.


Now can CMM pick up on this and add it to what he ultimately wants to do? I hope so, because when we can execute what we want on offense it looks pretty good but I definitely think he needs to change some of his player evals going forward, to not just fit his system but what wins in this particular conference.

Exactly, Baker and Cook are prime examples. Everyone can see Cooks obvious talent but we also see the sloppy play and bad shots. That doesn’t mesh with efficient half court style basketball. Baker is a big stretch 5 with some post up skill. He can work well in a spread attack where there’s a lot of space but that’s not how we’re constructed or how we play. So you get flashes of their talent but mostly it’s been difficult to sustain consistent play from 2 of your best players and this problem permeates throughout the roster. We’re in year 2 with very different rosters in both seasons yet we still have the same issues with turnovers and rebounding. Thats not a talent problem there’s a through line in how we play.

Just trying to show that there is no “McMahon hate”. Nobody hates McMahon he’s just not going to win here for reasons that have nothing to do with him personally.

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You’ll get downvotes from the usual culprits but you’re absolutely right.

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The hustle of this years team is outstanding. It’s like night and day from last year. They made a hell of a comeback in the 2nd half the other night but couldn’t keep it up.

There was nothing, nothing to be optimistic about last year. This year is another story.