re: We were the only SEC basketball team to lose today

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At full strength i would agree with you. But with Reed out we can use the games to give Chest and Collins more experience in the offense than they were expected to be. Robert Miller and possibly Boyde too.

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I'd rather they get that experience against teams with a pulse, otherwise IMO you are wasting those minutes. Challenge them a little.

Me whipping my little cousin on the garage goal back in the day didn't make me any better, but the challenge of trying to beat my big brother did.

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I'd rather they get that experience against teams with a pulse, otherwise IMO you are wasting those minutes. Challenge them a little.

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It is late December. Every team is playing cupcakes right now. The SEC schedule starts in 3 weeks. We will have 2 straight months of playing physical challenging basketball. No need to be killing the team right now.

We already played some challenging teams in the OOC schedule. I can't believe you guys are complaining about a few games over Christmas break.

Writing is on the wall with the current roster. McMahon has brought in guys that play hard defense and get after it with effort. But, no offensive firepower and no offensive identity. It is yet another season where I don't know what we're trying to do on offense.
Ball movement has improved, but still no clue as to what we're doing or if there are any strengths LSU can play towards. It's just not here.

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losing to Net Ranking 12 Pitt is better for the resume than beating 364 MS Valley State.

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Again, I see no value whatsoever in these games. If you need one or two fillers to finish up the schedule I guess everyone does it, but it IMHO really does nothing to help you prepare your team and the scheduling of 3 straight games like this right before SEC play?

As Alt says - we've done similarly in recent past and actually did well our first SEC game so I guess all in all maybe it don't matter? But there will be zero fan interest, the players will be going through the motions and not very motivated and the competition will do nothing to prepare you for conference play and it definitely won't help your NET as you point out.

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I don't mind scheduling wet dogs late in the OOC, but we have to show up and handle these teams. If we let any of these 3 keep it within 20 its going to torch our NET. Being at 63 its kind of right on the cusp of being a bubble team. Of course winning games in the SEC will improve that and if they get 9 wins it won't matter. But its about having that safety net

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Winning these games by less than 20 doesn't matter a bit. We have roughly 16 Q1 games to play in the SEC. Win 8+ SEC games and we are in. If not, we aren't. So sit back and enjoy the ride this season. The team has a lot of players who are easy to root for and have shown zero quit.