re: LSU 58 @ Texas Tech 82 Final - ESPN2

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The last two games the shooting has been off. What happened?

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It's not a good shooting team. And has no one to create offense on their own.

Back to reality.

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That second half vs. BC was troubling for me

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That's correct, I mistated in my original. It's more of a drought at somepoint that digs the hole. Those were prolonged in the last two games in a way they had not been previously this season. The BC game was won purely on a talent disparity, and suddenly "finding it" at the end of the game/OT.

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they got up in us physically and we retreated.

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This is the thing we need to rectify. We have the guys to push back, but they are not. Robert Miller needs to find that and use it. He has the tools and the size to be a presence inside. Nwoko gives us a bit, but Miller is the guy who needs to step up now, IMO.

Thanks for the feedback.

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I feel that he may be the worst men's basketball coach that I can remember at LSU.

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Statistically he is. His current record is 53-54 (.495) His SEC wining % is .260.

Johnson had a .511 overall winning %
Brady's was .580
Jones's was .556
Wade's was 673.

Jones wasn't a great coach. But I think he gets far too much heat relative to McMahon. Jones only had 1 losing season in 5 years and only finished below .500 in SEC once. I would argue Johnson was worse. Yes, he had the one great season where he won the SEC. But his next two seasons were awful.

That's not some unfounded "bias" or unsupported opinion. It's just the raw numbers. I think you can make the argument that McMahon has not only been the worst basketball coach of the last 30 (or more years), but arguably the worst coach of any major sport at LSU during that time. I which that wasn't the case. But it is.

Of course, you'll soon have the small handful of fans who will rush in to tell everyone to not believe their eyes and explain the multitude of reasons why the dismal 3+ year results are the byproduct of ANY AND EVERYTHING except the most obvious answer....McMahon just isn't a good major conf. coach.

Agree with everything you've said, but you have to account for the turn that the entire SEC has taken in MBB. When Jones and Johnson were coaching the SEC was no where near as good.

On the other had we haven't had a single season where I thought we were at least a competitive game contender under McMahon. Every big game is an expected loss

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This is the thing we need to rectify. We have the guys to push back, but they are not. Robert Miller needs to find that and use it. He has the tools and the size to be a presence inside. Nwoko gives us a bit, but Miller is the guy who needs to step up now, IMO.

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I do think Nwoko can push back, but he has a history of foul trouble so that's a catch 22. I also think Tamba will not shy away from physicality and has a high motor but I'm not sure his skill set is high enough that physicality alone justifies more PT if you know what I'm saying.

I just don't think Miller has it in him and I'm not sure I see any of the others on the team that are all of a sudden turn into push back guys. McKinnon looks flat out scared to death of screens on the defensive end. Thomas is just small.

You’re right that we got lucky against BC, and that poor play continued into the Texas Tech game, but LSU had been crushing teams comparable to BC, so I think they will rebound. I think Thomas is terrific, and Sutton and Nwoko are very good players, but I think we need to shoot well from 3pt range for Thomas to succeed, because Thomas will be neutralized if we don’t. Max is inconsistent, but even when he is on, we’ll need someone else to shoot well to beat the better teams. I think Sutton is the key to a good season, because he’s a good 3pt shooter and the best inside out player on the team, and Thomas can’t do it alone, but Sutton has been a little tentative lately. He seemed to get more assertive in the 2nd half of the Tech game, and it kept us even with Tech, but he has to bring it all game. Maybe he lost a little confidence, and that 2nd half got it back. Somehow, CMM needs to light the fire under Sutton, because the team needs him to be a major contributor. Sutton became even more important after losing Reed. CMM needs to get him to embrace this as an opportunity if he has pro aspirations. I also think CMM needs to pull Max faster if he’s having a bad game, because we need someone with confidence shooting 3s for Thomas to be effective.