re: LSU MBB doesn't have another game to play until November...

No fire McSuck; no watch LSU basketball.

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Now more than ever you don’t need star recruits to win and even though we had a very good, very experienced roster this season coach Mac still couldn’t get it done. So where’s his lane to success? He’s not going to recruit at a UK level and hasn’t been able to win by having good, veteran rosters play well like USC so how is he going to win consistently?

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As several have pointed out, Kentucky's problem is a bunch of 5* recruits every year that either can't play as a team or opt out after one year to the pros. LSU has a lot of veteran players...Baker, Wright, Cook, Wilkinson, Fountain, Hannibal, Dean, etc. Even Ward and Reed are multiple year players. However, I disagree about "very good"...they are not very good. Wright started at Vandy and Cook at a mid level conference team (Tulane) and I guess Baker at mid level conference team Nevada but there aren't a lot of guys who would start anywhere in a major conference and be a force. But once again, it is pretty obvious to me that you need that "go to guy" which LSU does not have. Doesn't mean a one man team but a guy who can pop for 35 occasionally...B J Mack, the Wade kid at A&M, the kid for Oregon last night, etc.

I've said this before...there is no one on LSU's team that I would trust to make several 3 pointers in a game when the rest of the team is struggling.

9-9 in conference is the floor if we want to be a tourney team. If we go 9-9 in the conference with 10 or 11 OOC wins we will probably be in the NCAA.

LSU was close but also so far away this past season. Nicholls loss obviously, but getting housed by a bad Syracuse and a bad K state also dropped the net a ton. If we can avoid results like that in the OOC... We could be picking LSU in the first round next year.

It wasn't just a mediocre record or just a couple of bad OOC losses as you mentioned. How about getting blown out twice by Alabama...being blown out by Tennessee...losing twice to Miss State by large margins, blown out by Auburn, etc. There were several games where in one whole half of basketball, LSU wasn't even competitive!

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Baker at Texas. Baker was the 32nd ranked player in his class which is a high 4* level recruit.

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Hell even rivals had the guy as a 5*

I was sold a vial of snake oil after the MVSU game baw.
I thought Baker was the second coming of Jack Sikma

I knew the fall off would be there but god damn. The fall off was massive

Well CMM better find some more guards in the meantime. All we have for next year is Williams, Stewart, and incoming freshman Givens. Need more Beef down low too. He's got his work cut out for him if he wants to stay mediocre.

We desperately need a real deal lead guard who can score and distribute. We also need a big who can defend and rebound, but the lead guard is the true key here

Williams and Ward are good players as your 2 and 3 but they need someone to set them up to be at their best imo

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Baker's minutes and role on the team were the single biggest reason (besides coaching) that we sucked this year.

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Hopefully McMahon learned a lesson here about what type of big fits what he wants to do

Baker's offensive skill was solid but not good enough to justify his defense/rebounding

So McMahon couldn't give him consistent minutes/role and his offense suffered as a result (conjecture on my part, tbh)

And we got an extremely inconsistent player as a result

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Agreed. If we had a better OOC record this year we could have been dancing with our 9-9 record.

Everyone's shitting on going 9-9 now (I wonder what WW went with multiple NBA players his last season) but let's be honest here... NO ONE expected us to go 9-9 after leaving OOC play 8-5... I strongly remember hearing zero, two, three, four... but NO ONE predicted 9-9. I'm just thankful that there was improvement this year.

Even then looking at the bigger picture our regular season record could have easily been 22-9 (12-6).

Let me break it down:
3pt loss to Dayton at last second after choking double digit lead because we subbed out Trae Hannibal
2 pt loss to Nicholls at buzzer
4pt loss to A&M at home because of a bullshite blocking foul call on Jalen Cook (I don't like blaming refs but let's be real baws that shite was fricking terrible)
2pt loss to Georgia off of a missed over the back call and missed last second Jordan Wright corner three
2pt loss to Florida that could of went to OT (and we had momentum) if Jordan Wright didn't smoke a layup


so yes our record was lacking but.. ball bounces our way a few more times and we're easily dancing

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I don't disagree with you at all. However, there are probably 20-30 teams that can say the same thing. Plus, the record and outlook on the season could have been FAR worse had a few bounces NOT gone LSU's way. We've all seen the foul that was called at the end of the South Carolina game (that gave Wright the go-ahead FTs) not be called. And the game winner vs. Kentucky wasn't like it was some great set up that led to an open look. The play was for Wright to drive and he got stoned by two UK players. If the ball doesn't bounce right back to him, that is a loss. How different do things look without those wins? VASTLY different.

Regardless, LSU's record is what it is. And it was significant improvement in conference play. That can't be argued. However, I think the thing many overlook is that the improvement this season doesn't necessarily mean greater improvement is likely next year because the roster that played this year won't be the same roster that plays next season. LSU is losing more than 50% of their production from this season. McMahon could pull in a great transfer class and things could be MUCH better next season. Or, next year's roster may not be so great and things could be much worse. So it's foolish to just assume because LSU improved this year that will continue into next season.

IMO, McMahon has a style of play he wants that is largely reliant on two positions. (1) A PG who can create the offense largely off of high ball screens/pick-and-rolls, and (2) a stretch "5" Center who can shoot from deep. Last season he had the Center, but didn't have the PG. This year he had the PG for a little bit, Cook, but for only 13 games. He also had a drop-off at the Center spot.

My thought for year 3 is to maybe not be so married to that style of play when building your roster. If you can find a great PG and stretch 5, great! But perhaps the approach should be to simply find the very best players you can in the portal and develop the game approach based upon their strengths rather than to try to jam them into the style of play you prefer. We saw a little bit of that in the last half of SEC play. The numbers clearly showed LSU was a better team when Dean was on the floor. And Dean wasn't a "stretch 5" (though it looks like he may have been able to shoot better than anyone assumed). However, McMahon continued to try to make things work with Baker in the game because Baker had more of the skillset for a center McMahon preferred. Instead of being so dead set on making that style of play work why not alter course and accept another approach may work better with this particular group of players?