re: Let's get hot and win the Men's Basketball SEC Tournament!

This is why we need a Kentucky victory by FIFTY tomorrow!!

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The biggest reason? LSU has been in the bottom 1/3rd of the SEC in turnovers (in conference play) every year MM has been here.

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Losing two experienced starters to season ending injuries and personal issues thr psdt two seasons has something to do with this, especially this year losing Dedon Thomas. While Jalen Reece has played well and has an excellent assist to turnover ratio his lack of experience has hampered the offense from staying in efficient flow and that has caused late in the clock turnovers and shots from bad angles. Thats why Tamba ended up with the ball so often in the waning seconds of the shot clock. Thomas is more of a scoring threat than Reese which forced defenses to play him honestly. Reece's confidence grew during the last month and he will be an outstanding player in the future.

go away

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Losing two experienced starters to season ending injuries and personal issues thr psdt two seasons has something to do with this, especially this year losing Dedon Thomas. While Jalen Reece has played well and has an excellent assist to turnover ratio his lack of experience has hampered the offense from staying in efficient flow and that has caused late in the clock turnovers and shots from bad angles. Thats why Tamba ended up with the ball so often in the waning seconds of the shot clock. Thomas is more of a scoring threat than Reese which forced defenses to play him honestly. Reece's confidence grew during the last month and he will be an outstanding player in the future.

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Adjusted to scale/usage, Reed had one of the worst turnover rates on the team every season. Him being out of the lineup HELPED the turnover issues.

But hey, let'[s continue to blame EVERYTHING else except the ONE constant in the last 4 years. The TO issues are a result of MM's shitty offensive approach. It's nothing but a single set on each possession with the hope it works. So when the initial set call doesn't work on the possession there is uncertainly of what to do after that. That's why you so often see guys standing and looking at one another to try to figure out what to do next..which puts the guy with the ball in his hands in an unfavorable position because he doesn't know what to do, but he knows he needs to do something with the shot clock continuing to run down.

would that be like 5-6 games? lsu has nearly that amount of sec wins in the last 2 years

Why? So they would get an automatic bid to NCAA tournament and, effectively, depriving a more deserving team.

That's kind of a knock I have with MM. He's very formulaic in his in-game approach and far too often been reluctant to adjust to the game flow...even though things weren't going well for his team. I just don't think he's ever had a good feel for the game. Often times you saw that manifest on defense where he just refused to change is approach. I can't recall many, if any times, where he threw in a few possessions of hard press just to speed up the tempo when the game turned into a half-court rock fight that didn't favor LSU. Or, flipped to a few possessions of zone to change the look for an opponent who was very comfortable executing in the half court. You saw that in rotations too when, despite getting his arse kicked over and over he was reluctant to give some guys deeper in the bench significant minutes. At least until the season was lost.

Basketball is such a game of constant adjustments. There are, on average, 130- 150 combined possessions per game. Simply just "running your set plays" rarely is enough. It's constant adjustment, whether that be style of play, personnel matchups, etc where a good coach has an effect on the outcome. MM has always been slow to adapt and change.

For example, in the Texas game, after being down big at the half, LSU fought back to get it to a 4 point game with ~10:00 to play. Texas is a team that doesn't want to shoot a lot of 3's. They want to attack the basket to score or get to the FT line. At that 10:00 mark Texas clearly decided they weren't taking any more 3's or jump shots. They were driving to the basket on every possession...content to just try to bleed out a win from the FT line. From that point on, Texas scored 23 points. 13 were from the FT line. 8 were dunks/layups. Knowing that your opponent does not want to take 3s/jump shots, why not throw in some possessions of a zone to try to force them into taking shots they don't really want to take? LSU was playing well offensively. Particularly McKinnon who was on fire. Maybe by going to zone you get a few more stops by forcing Texas to take shots they don't want to take, thus allowing your offense to create separation. Instead, MM didn't change anything and there were only 2 possessions in the final 9 minutes where Texas didn't score. That, and the fact that despite scoring 21 in the second half McKinnon didn't take a shot in the final 2:00, mitigated LSU's good offensive performance.

It was a game where an obvious coaching adjustment might have gotten you the 3-4 stops needed to win. Instead, LSU stayed with the status quo and just hoped it was enough...it wasn't.

I mean if Little Rock baseball can randomly get hot to win their conference tournament in baseball, LSU can do it in basketball.