MBB : Early conference play opinion

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Only likely wins I see for LSU hereafter are Arkansas, Missouri, and @ Vanderbilt.

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Did you see @A&M as a win before it happened??

I’m not guaranteeing a win but Georgia is in the same boat. We can steal that one. “Can.” We match in most stats.

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The defense hasn’t been a top characteristic for this team.

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I would disagree and say if anything forcing turnovers and being annoying on defense has been this team’s identity

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Less than 5 instances of double digit rebounds by team.

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Baker is soft and can’t rebound but McMahon plays him the most. Reed has not lived up to his billing and lags in real time. I can see the gears turning in his head as he watches the ball sail over his head instead of going up for the rebound. Fountain, Collins, and Chest are good rebounders but don’t see the court enough. Idk why fountain doesn’t play. McMahon just hates collins I guess. And Chest got a redshirt (which was a terrible decision).

It’s quite sad that the best rebounders on our team have been guards. Baker has had games where he was outrebounded by players a foot shorter than him (Cook and Stewart) as well as Williams and Wright. Pitiful.

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However coach has a couple role players on the bench in wilk, collins or chest.

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I agree but he doesn’t play them so

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Baker is soft and can’t rebound

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I agree, he does have some skills offensively, but Nichols showed the second game of the season how to defend him. If doubled as soon as he gets the ball he absolutely panics. And he was billed a good 3-point shooter coming in....he has not been here.

McMahon it seems is gonna ride it out with him though so I think we're just gonna have to hope he gets better.

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Reed has not lived up to his billing and lags in real time.

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Ward has finally started to develop into the player he was billed, I agree....Reed though we see definite flashes, is still lagging.

As for the rebounding and toughness (IMHO they go hand in hand) my concern from day 1 was this was a huge weakness and something I didn't see improving as it was intrinsic.

However, out of the blue the game in College station and the games that followed until this past one, we seemed to have found something there and were actually beating all our opponents on the board and playing with toughness.

That did not happen Saturday.

Better than expected. That’s the nicest thing I can say so far.

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The team is moving in the right direction. I don’t see more than 8 sec wins but was guessing 5 a month ago.

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I can agree to this, even thought the TAMU game sucked and we fell apart down the stretch 3/2 is a good spot for this team.

Now while I see some progress all that can get wiped away if they can't regroup after a loss with a really tough stretch ahead. Also Playing Baker is coaching malpractice at this point. Idc if we have to run four guards out there he is a black hole. Admit you missed on him and let fountain/Dean/Collins take his minutes

If they get stop the turnovers and get rebounds things could be different. These things lose games. If you don't have a really high powered offense to overcome these issues, you won't win against similar competition.

Even with that, they are hanging in these cames and fighting and sometimes pulling them out. It is above my expectations. But now they have teased me a little and my expectations were increasing.

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It’s just going to take some time to get out of the shadow of the ncaa investigation/ruling. Going into last year was still a big question mark and kept recruits away.

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McMahon signed two top 100 players (Reed and Ward), along with a guy just outside the top 100 (Phillips) with that "ominous shadow" hanging over them. He was also able to retain 3 players from the 2021-2022 roster...which is more than some other teams who went through coaching changes were able to retain. And those teams performed FAR better than LSU did last season.

McMahon did a terrible job last season. Plain and simple. The bar for "success" last year was as low as it had been at LSU for quite some time...and he failed to come anywhere close to it.

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team defense

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This further illustrates you don't really know what you are talking about. Defense is the strength of this LSU team.

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I don’t see how this isn’t a team with a solid chance to make tourney next season.

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Why is next season going to be some magical year? There are 7 guys on the roster who are seniors/grad students. Now, some of those guys may be able to return for an extra "covid" year, but there is no guarantee they will. There is more roster movement in college basketball than in any other sport. While we all hope McMahon will be able to retain everyone who had eligibility remaining, the likelihood is he won't simply because of the nature of the sport today. Thus, it is very likely 50% (probably more) of his roster will be brand new. Maybe that will be a great roster. But it is ridiculous to sit here today and say "next year" will be a tournament team when no one knows what next year's roster will look like.

The transfer era has completely changed the game. The days of the progressive, linear rebuild are over. Previously, when a new coach got the job the only options available to him to immediately improve the roster was HS signees, JUCO players, and a small pool of grad transfers. That's not the case any longer. A guy can come in, immediately flip the roster, and have success in his first year. Multiple teams have done just that. Is that a high burden to place on a new HC? Sure. But that's the reality we live in. The transfer portal can gut your roster in the blink of an eye. But it can also be used to become very good, very quickly.

As far as the early conf. play thus far, LSU has performed better than expected. They sit at a disappointing 3-2. I say "disappointing" because Saturday's game was winnable. Overall though, the early start has not be disappointing. Last season LSU was getting blown out almost immediately following the second game of SEC play. That hasn't been the case this year. They've won 3 and competed in all but one of those games (Auburn)...which is excusable. Is that enough to say McMahon deserves year 3? IMO, not quite yet, but he's pretty close. 5-6 SEC wins will get him next year.

But this program needs to start moving. The "cloud of investigation" is over. The sanctions were minimal. And the expectations here aren't terribly high. No one is expecting a SEC championship or deep tournament run this season...or even next. But the expectation do need to increase. Hopefully LSU does just that the rest of the season. The opportunities are certainly there. So while it's great to at least be interested in the team at this point, they have to start winning more games they "aren't supposed to win." That is the next step.

There isn't a team in the SEC we can't compete with. Winning is another issue. Cook needs to play at a higher level for this team to win some of these close games and they need to rebound as a team as we don't have a dominant big on the board. Reed should be that guy but he is soft when it comes to rebounding.