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re: LSU MBB doesn't have another game to play until November...
Posted on 3/22/24 at 10:09 am to DallasTiger45
Posted on 3/22/24 at 10:09 am to DallasTiger45
quote:
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
Baker is the type of center that you either force into being a role player or build your entire scheme around. There is no in between. He excelled at Nevada largely in part because he was a role player. Limited paint touches, and mostly used as a stretch big.
Now compare that to LSU, where there were games (especially early in the season) where it looked like our entire offense was post-centric and built around Baker. Let's not forget a HUGE reason as to why we lost to Nicholls was because Baker couldn't figure out how to deal with the 2-3 zone they implemented early. He would drop step and then get ripped (something we'd see quite often this season). Then throughout the rest of the year he was put in limbo posting up in the paint while our guards and wings looked him off. This caused issues as it made it difficult for multi-level shot creation for the rest of the players on the court. Reed especially, as I think his best bet in scoring is to iso and go 1 on 1 from the perimeter. He hardly had a chance to do that with Baker being a black hole in the low post. Baker's role should have been as an off ball screener for wings like Tyrell and Jordan, and on-ball wise a pick and popper... but wait he couldn't do that, because he's too slow.
The fact is that a bigman like Baker whose main appeal is his offensive game has to be impactful on that end of the court. Too many times he was a net negative on both ends due to his inability to rebound and defend (Bama killed him in PnR actions). And it's not like we had good defense and rebounding out of the PF position. Reed is making strides but still has a long way to go, and IMO- he should switch to C because I feel like that's where he will thrive the most. But that's neither here nor there.
All of these things considered, Baker still played more than Dean, and cost us NUMEROUS games as a result.
0
Posted on 3/22/24 at 10:14 am to Alt26
quote:
If the ball doesn't bounce right back to him, that is a loss. How different do things look without those wins? VASTLY different.
Agreed. I'm just trying to be optimistic.
quote:
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.
Agreed. I've said numerous times the portal this offseason will make or break us.
quote:
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?
Agreed, Alt. You and I have talked extensively about how McMahon forces a scheme on his players instead of adapting his scheme to his players.
quote:
nd Dean wasn't a "stretch 5" (though it looks like he may have been able to shoot better than anyone assumed).
Nah baw I knew he had the strap.
quote:
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?
I think even a blind person could see that Baker was a worse player than Dean. It was foolish that this was a bickering point for most of the season.
Posted on 3/22/24 at 10:20 am to NotaStarGazer
Right but that rating is going from his class group to all classes so it doesn’t change his talent eval. The problem with Baker isn’t ability, like with most of our guys we’re not putting them in ideal position. If you want I can get into the weeds on this but it might be long.
Posted on 3/22/24 at 10:21 am to Madking
quote:
If you want I can get into the weeds on this but it might be long.
Do it
Posted on 3/22/24 at 10:22 am to mcmaniacinsaneasylum
Watched the backup center for NC State last night. Burns is the star but this Middlebrooks guy was just as effective on both sides of the court. He had a motor that just didn't stop much like Hannibal. He had great touch and athleticism on the offensive side and on defense never stopped moving his feet and crashed the boards. If Reed played like that he would be All SEC. And Burns was picked up from Winthrop after leaving TN as a redshirt freshman. What a get that was. That's the kind of portal player Mcmahon needs to be looking for. That guy is very unorthodox but he is a game changer.
Posted on 3/22/24 at 10:28 am to NotaStarGazer
quote:
There were several games where in one whole half of basketball, LSU wasn't even competitive!
No doubt, I expect a whooping every now and then in conference just the nature of the biz tbh. Although that Mississippi state game sucked so hard because it basically wiped out what we did the previous two games in the analytics department . And at least all those teams made the Tournament. Syracuse and K state were equal competition to LSU doubling as both bad losses and NET damagers.
Posted on 3/22/24 at 10:33 am to mcmaniacinsaneasylum
quote:
I think even a blind person could see that Baker was a worse player than Dean.
I think it doesn't get mentioned enough that when Baker was on the court Reed was basically useless because Baker wouldn't get the frick out of the way. I know we bash reed(and some of its deserving) but how is he suppose to get into any kind of rhythm when he can't even play with the big playing the most minutes.
Posted on 3/22/24 at 10:46 am to Pnels08
quote:
I think it doesn't get mentioned enough that when Baker was on the court Reed was basically useless because Baker wouldn't get the frick out of the way.
Agreed bro. I’ve beaten that horse beyond dead at this point.
Posted on 3/22/24 at 10:57 am to mcmaniacinsaneasylum
quote:
I agree. I know we're going after this guy from Rhode Island , Jeremy Foumena. 6'11 center but averaged a paltry 5 and 3.... was really worried when I found out he was one of our targets.
You should be worried! He is 21 years old, 7' and 210 by your link. The arena would have to keep the air conditioning turned off because any breeze would blow him off the court!
I would call him a toothpick but that would be insulting to toothpicks everywhere.Posted on 3/22/24 at 11:05 am to mcmaniacinsaneasylum
So if you watch teams like Purdue and UCONN use their bigs who are similar is foot speed and athleticism you’ll see them using a lot of drop coverage on D. What’s happened in the last couple years is coaches have realized on the high ball screen if you allow the ball handler to take the shot you’re getting the best % return for your defense. What we do is either hedge or show but we don’t do it properly at all so you often get Baker in a chase position against a smaller man. What this does is pull him away from the basket and leaves him out of position for rebounds which is why he and all our bigs numbers there are so bad. On offense we basically run a 5 out, high ball screen most of the time with no off ball action. This was popular a few years back but again teams have learned how to defend it but we’re still forcing it. We use Baker in the pick and pop where he’s excelled for us but when that’s taken away we have problems. What we tend to do is post him up on the low block where he has trouble anticipating double teams and finding open guys. What the good teams do is post their guys up in the pinch post area a little further from the basket where the big has a 360 degree field of vision. Now we do sometimes put him in our double horns set but it’s often too far from the basket forcing him to put the ball on the floor where he also has trouble, most 6-11 guys do. You can also look at a team like BYU who runs a lot of what’s called Zoom action where they use a backside lift then screen or cut back door with guards and wings to pull the D back to the rim then look for 3s from their bigs. In general we’re just not in line with the current trends that are having success on either side and Baker is a prime example of this.
This post was edited on 3/22/24 at 11:10 am
Posted on 3/22/24 at 11:21 am to Pnels08
quote:
I think it doesn't get mentioned enough that when Baker was on the court Reed was basically useless because Baker wouldn't get the frick out of the way. I know we bash reed(and some of its deserving) but how is he suppose to get into any kind of rhythm when he can't even play with the big playing the most minutes
1000% agree.
LSU's spacing, particularly with Baker in, was awful at times. He would set a ballscreen then just kind of clog the lane.
The biggest issue with Reed is that his motor and level of focus runs hot and cold. At times he's dominant. Others, it literally looks like he doesn't even realize he's on the floor.
I've said all along Reed reminds me a lot of Trendon Watford. Below the rim big guys with some degree of perimeter skills who prefer to play like guards, but are really at their best when given space to drive to the rim. There are times when Reed is an incredible finisher...with both hands.
I know this is a highlight tape and, thus, somewhat misleading because it doesn't show any of the bad plays. But watch Watford and imagine it is Reed. You can see a lot of the same skillset. But what you see in the Watford tape is ton of space inside. There is no second big man (and his defender) clogging up the lane. And for the record, that LSU offense was the 5th most efficient offense in the nation that season.
LINK
McMahon though seems absolutely dead set on having a KJ Williams type of player on the floor at all times. That's great...if you have KJ Williams. But you didn't this year. So why not adapt, get Baker AND Dean off the floor, space things out, and let Reed be your "5"? Tiger Ugly screamed for this all season.
This is really my biggest criticism of McMahon. I think he has a set game plan and approach he likes and is reluctant to adjust to something else if it isn't working because either he is afraid to do so, or he simply doesn't have a good feel for how a game is flowing.
Posted on 3/22/24 at 11:24 am to Alt26
quote:
So why not adapt, get Baker AND Dean off the floor, space things out, and let Reed be your "5"?
I got downvoted to hell for saying Reed should be the 5
Watford was a lot better and a lot more versatile than Reed.. but I agree with your point. 5 out and spacing and is the way to go for a player like Reed to be fully unleashed.
This post was edited on 3/22/24 at 12:00 pm
Posted on 3/22/24 at 11:47 am to Madking
quote:
What we do is either hedge or show but we don’t do it properly at all so you often get Baker in a chase position against a smaller man. What this does is pull him away from the basket and leaves him out of position for rebounds which is why he and all our bigs numbers there are so bad.
Agreed. The amount of times we'd improperly hedge to the point at which our big was playing as far out as the sideline hash was genuinely mind numbing.
Speaking of defense, why didn't we run more zone instead of our porous switching m2m defense?? Our zone looked good against Florida, SC, etc.. I was screaming for us to run a zone against UNT because we were getting abused in the corners.. but yet no change on defense by McMahon. Very concerning.
quote:
On offense we basically run a 5 out, high ball screen most of the time with no off ball action.
When we do run off ball actions they're very predictable. DHOs from the corner to the wing make up for 80% of our off ball action. Against UNT we ran the same set for tyrell to wrap from the corner the the opposite wing like 10 times in a row and it worked exactly 0 times... No off ball screens, no off ball cuts, no matchup exploitations (besides Baker posting up).
Alt mentioned it about how McMahon prefers bigs like KJ Williams... imagine if we had BJ Mack instead of Baker....
quote:
ut it’s often too far from the basket forcing him to put the ball on the floor where he also has trouble, most 6-11 guys do.
How many times did Baker get the ball at the elbow out of horns just to crab dribble and hand off to someone within 5 seconds???? If he didn't get ripped of course. I'm not a fan of running repetitive sets that don't amount to much. A lot of our points just came from 1 on 1 scoring from players like Wright taking it into their own hands. I wouldn't even consider a large portion of how Ward scored a "set". Just basic basketball Xs and Os 101 driving and kicking to an open corner sitter.
I feel like we ran better sets for Adam Miller last year. He got open a frick ton and just couldn't convert. I remember arguing back then if it was him or McMahon as to why he was struggling... one thing I can definitively say is that if we ran sets for our players as often as we did for Miller we'd be a much better team. He was just fricking garbage.
This post was edited on 3/22/24 at 11:54 am
Posted on 3/22/24 at 11:57 am to GeorgeWest
quote:
CMM is lowest paid current MBB HC in the SEC.
Still overpaid
Posted on 3/22/24 at 12:27 pm to mcmaniacinsaneasylum
Good point about the zone, it’s something we often see with coach Mac. He doesn’t make adjustments until we’re in a desperate situation then even if they work he abandons them quickly. Look at the SEC tourney loss to State, in the 1st half we blitzed the high ball screed with Hubbard and had great success with it. State adjusted by having Hubbard keep his dribble and eventually loop wide around our big who as usual didn’t have his foot placement correct and got beat on the drive a couple times. But instead of just adjusting the fundamental error with the big man’s feet position we just abandoned what had worked and proceeded to get torched in the 2nd half. This kind of thing happens a lot and with all areas of the team.
Posted on 3/22/24 at 1:09 pm to tigerbait2010
quote:Well, this is the first thing you posted:
What a nasty bunch . They think we hate LSU, amazing.
quote:
God my month is made not having to watch this team
Doesn't sound too much like you love LSU there.
I'm an LSU fan, have been a basketball fan since the days of Rudy Macklin and Ethan Martin. I WANT a better team, but I also want as much "LSU" as possible. It would have been nice to see a run, even in the NIT.
Posted on 3/22/24 at 1:30 pm to Madking
quote:
Look at the SEC tourney loss to State,
Hunter Dean destroys their defense, then promptly rides tPine for 8 minutes to start the second half
McMarch baby
Posted on 3/22/24 at 3:38 pm to saint tiger225
quote:
A shame LSU is paying over $2.5 mil for such a subpar coach.
That a bargain price for a coach in the SEC. Maybe we're getting what we paid for?
Imagine how Arkansas and Missouri feel about now.
Posted on 3/22/24 at 3:56 pm to mdomingue
quote:
That a bargain price for a coach in the SEC. Maybe we're getting what we paid for?
more proof the administration doesn't prioritize MBB
Posted on 3/22/24 at 4:00 pm to mcmaniacinsaneasylum
quote:
I've said numerous times the portal this offseason will make or break us.
I think you and I have been banging this drum for a bit now.
I am curious about a few players and your (or anyone else's) opinion on them.
Carlos Stewart, Daimion Collins, and Cory Chest. I don't know much about them other than what I have read here. Do you think any of them try to transfer and do they add real value, Chest and Collins in particular. I know Stewart and Collins saw a little time early but I do not recall anything memorable.
Regardless they need a 5 that is closer to KJ. I have let my mind wonder a few times to the thought of this team with KJ and the good version of Jalen Cook. I don't know why I do this to myself, though
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