re: Listening to MM and Hannibal on post game show on SEC was a relief

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I keep referencing this on my show because reading it drives me nuts. College basketball is a transfer portal game. Look at the SEC all conference teams.

Colin Castleton, Oscar T, Mark Sears, Boots Radford, Ricky Council, Johni Broom, Liam Robbins, Jahvon Quinnerly. The list goes on and on. They're all transfers. Getting high level high school players is part of the puzzle, but it's not nearly the entire puzzle. Five to seven guys who will be on next year's roster play for Toledo, Washington State and Memphis (I just made all those up). If you're just going to pile on the coach because he's got 2 HS kids signed who aren't Top 25 players, it just feels to me like you just want a reason to complain.

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I don't worry so much about the team rankings as that of the individual players. Yes, transfers are a big piece of the puzzle. But the top teams are still getting big time HS signees (even if it is fewer than in years past). This year's LSU class has two guys that are sub-100 signees (though some sites may have Chest in the 90's). That's ok IF you can hit in the portal. Like Kansas St did this season.

But ultimately, I don't think McMahon's roster building this year was that bad. His HS signees were highly regarded (at least Ward and Reed). KJ has been as advertised. Fountain has been better than expected. At least in some world prior to this season Adam Miller was a highly regarded player...both coming out of HS and last year before his injury. My lack of confidence in McMahon is not as much in his ability to get players, as much as it is in his inability to coach at this level.

I think you would even agree there is no world in which this roster should have been THIS bad this season. So I'm not confident McMahon could do anything with an influx of talent even if he was able to get it. LSU's offensive approach has been just awful all season, and they progressively got worse defensively (which was pretty good early on)

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But pointing to this roster and then the two HS kids and proclaiming 2023-24 dead is just nonsensical.

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I think many feel the lack of great success in his HS recruiting is a basis for a lack of optimism in his ability to "recruit" the portal. That may prove to be misplaced. But it's not an unreasonable position as we sit here today.