re: Joe A, "We Have A (another) problem" WBB worst season in 14 years

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I knew this shitty thread was going to come up at some point after last night's game. I am surprised that it took this long. I love some of the responses from some people here who know nothing more about the program than what they pick up and read about in the paper the next morning. I have been attending these games for years and have followed the away games either on TV or radio. I would like to think that I have a little bit of 1st-person insight as to what is going on.

1) Caldwell makes $700K, not $900K as noted in the OP. At least get your facts straight.

2) Yes, she is pregnant. NO it is not a distraction. She still coaches her arse off during the game. To say her pregnancy is "a distraction" is aimless, pointless, random message board speculation based on ZERO first hand knowledge.

3) It has become apparent that she did NOT inherit a great group of players from Chancellor. Despite her efforts to "coach them up", they still make some of the same mistakes they made last year, they still are not great shooters and they still seem to all play with less than 100% effort sometimes. Van had those problems last year...and Caldwell is having the same issues this year.

4) The loss of Hughes at point guard has been borderline catastrophic. She was starting to score in double figures, was the best defender, and was the best at handling the press. When she went down, they had to move people to play in positions where they were not as comfortable and it has been a mess.

5) Speaking of Hughes, she was probably the one senior this year that was showing the most improvement from the new coach, and she goes down. Jones has gotten somewhat better...Barrett has the physical skills to be a superstar, but she has disappeared the last 5 games or so since Hughes went down. Black and Turnbow are very average players at best who are no better now than they were as freshmen.

Is the team a mess right now? Pretty much. Will it get better on Sunday when Kentucky comes to town? I doubt it...Kentucky is a pressure team by nature and it could get ugly.

The talk that Alleva screwed up...and made a bad hire...and that Caldwell will not work here...is just typical Rant bullshite. If you want to bitch about Alleva, then go ahead...but this hire is not the defense to such rants. Take it somewhere else.

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Man, you are EXACTLY ON POINT with that post.
I have a feeling there's bunch of folks on this thread who don't even pay attention to the team. Look, nobody was complaining about Nikki doing a bad job when the team was 13-3 and coming off a ten game winning streak, having just defeated a ranked South Carolina team (who just knocked off Tennessee last night by the way).

The fact of the matter is, the team is falling apart because they've lost their point guard and leader in Hughes. Should the team be that fragile............? Probably not. But with what Van left Nikki the margin for error was very small. An injury to Hughes or to Barrett was going to be catastrophic.........as it has been. We just don't have enough depth at those positions to make up for that kind of loss. I don't blame Nikki for that. The one complaint that I may have is the insistence on staying in that daggone zone defense. But by the same token, if we were to go to a man to man, we probably wouldn't match up very well and we'd see a lot of slashing to the basket. So, I'll just have to trust Nikki on that one.

Thankfully, she's done a good job recruiting. The current freshmen class and the incoming class for next season will set the program back on the upswing. I'm just ready for this current crop of mediocre seniors to move on.

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secman12

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You use way too many abbreviations in your thread...

I don't understand why typing out a word is so difficult for the people on this board.

Next year's signees: The summaries are taken from what I read about them on ESPN.

Danielle Ballard: 5'9 point guard from Memphis. 24th ranked player in the class nationally. Explosive player, good 3 point shooter...the type that could get hot and carry a team.

Kuaneshia Baker: 5'10 shooting guard from Gretna (Helen Cox). Apparently can attack both with the dribble and without the ball. Very scrappy player who will get after the loose ball (which is what we need right now). 96th rated player nationally. Good 3 point shooter...apparently a little "turnover prone" but that is correctable.

Derryal Youngblood: 6'4 center from John Curtis. Ranked 22nd at her position nationally. Could be the "post up" player that LSU hasn't really had since Fowles left. She is a 3-star and is nicknamed "The Tank"

Since LSU is losing 5 seniors, I would assume there is room to sign another 1 or 2 players somewhere along the line if they so choose.

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Danielle Ballard: 5'9 point guard from Memphis. 24th ranked player in the class nationally. Explosive player, good 3 point shooter...the type that could get hot and carry a team.

Kuaneshia Baker: 5'10 shooting guard from Gretna (Helen Cox). Apparently can attack both with the dribble and without the ball. Very scrappy player who will get after the loose ball (which is what we need right now). 96th rated player nationally. Good 3 point shooter...apparently a little "turnover prone" but that is correctable.

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Keeping my fingers crossed we can finally have what we haven't since Hoston and Q left.

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Keeping my fingers crossed we can finally have what we haven't since Hoston and Q left.

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Yes. This.

I can't believe we're criticizing the administration for going out and spending the money to get a top notch coach to come to LSU, regardless of whether or not it is a revenue sport. I want LSU to be successful in everything that we do and if you think it took money away from football or some other sport, you're out of your mind.

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I like Joe A and hear he is a very good fund raiser and money guy, keeping Verge and Herb (both A+++ guys) is great, but this winning thing is a real issue, mb is on hot seat, now wbb, which went to 5 FF in a row! 12 NCAA's in a row and was 3rd most attended sport 3 years ago (out sold mb) now lost 5 in a row and is likley to miss ncaa's for 2nd time in 15 years..all with a new coach who inherited a top 10 recruit and 8 of top 9 players from last year....she is also being paid 900k+ and is very pregant...I admit, my view of JA is falling, now both bb teams are in big danger of falling into bottom half of sec again...not acceptbable at all..two hires, two so far misses in bb

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I think I understand what you are saying but am not sure. Did you post this on your phone and didn't bother to proofread before sending?

Look, Chancellor came here , because of the problems caused by Pokey. The man did not recruit very well. Our players are slow to the max. Give the new coach some time.

Bump