re: What are your expectations for McMahon’s third season?

After a terrible start to the season, and getting ready to say we need a new coach, I am very pleased with how the season turned around and went. I just wanted to see improvement and a competitive team with some fight, and they definitely did that.


That being said, it's year 3 at a school with all of the advantages to be good every single year, so i expect to be in the NCAA tourney next year. Not making the tourney would be a failure of a season. I expect a tougher OOC schedule that will challenge us and put us in a good position to comfortably make the tourney even with a 10 win SEC record, and a 10 win SEC record should be the floor of what we are trying to achieve.
I know we are losing a good bit from this team, and we've only got two guys signed, but i don't care. It's the coaches job to figure that out and put a tournament quality team out there.

LSU 2020-21 defense
FG% -41.9%
3pt%- 30%
DRebs- 27


2023-24
FG%- 42.5%
3pt%- 33.4%
DRebs- 25.3

I kind of already considered Cook lost. Also are you thinking Collins or Stewart possibly enter the portal again?

Agreed on Cook.

Continuity is a good thing (re Collins and Stewart), if they are still active and engaged with the team and can come back healthy they can definitely still be contributors on a good team. Neither are game breakers but they are good depth pieces. Same with Fountain and Mwani you take them back if they want to come back.

The difference maker or makers, like you previously mentioned, will for sure have to come from the portal. He's done a decent job on hitting on offensive minded big men the last two cycles and will need that again. And he absolutely has to hit at PG and add someone similar to Wright. Maybe Reece Beekman will want to come back home and be the guy away from Bennett's system, if I'm looking at it right he still has the COVID year. But that's just wishful thinking which is all we can do until the portal opens and we get some movement.

We are likely to finish 9-9 this year, and will be close to making the NIT. That is step in the right direction, still a little slow in the portal era, but he’s trying to use a model that is less portal focused and more long-term program player based. That is risky in this era, but not impossible.

However, if that is your model, you have to retain players and you have show continued improvement, as opposed to coaches who are willing to live and die by the portal and rebuild their roster annually, who may have larger swings year-to-year.

All that being said, you need 10+ wins in what will be an even tougher SEC. That by nature should put you in the NCAA tournament mix. Think he really needs to make the NCAA field. A near-miss may be okay depending on the circumstances.

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We were but we were rotating through defensive philosophies at that time and none were nearly as bad as we are now

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LSU was horrible on defense for much of Wade's tenure

Year KenPom defensive efficiency rating

17-18: 136
18-19: 59
19-20: 179
20-21: 124

In 21-22 LSU finally became a great defensive team...only for the offense to tank. For all of the good he did, Wade's biggest flaw was his teams (except for 18-19) were terribly imbalanced. They were often elite on one end of the floor and correspondingly bad on the other.

The good news is that McMahon's teams haven't been imbalanced. The bad news is that balance has been achieved by being equally bad on BOTH ends of the floor.

My biggest criticism of McMahon is that he doesn't seem to have a great "feel" for the game. Sometimes it's pretty evident early a guy doesn't have it that game. Yet, he rides with him way too long. There's also been times this season where a guy is hot, yet he gets taken out right in the middle of a heater as if it was almost predetermined he was going to come out at a specific point. There has been multiple times where LSU was in a close game and needed stops/rebounds to close out a game. Yet, Baker was playing the final 4, 5, 6 minutes giving you neither. Sometimes you just have to adjust your plan based upon how your guys are playing at that moment. Sometimes you have to adjust your approach based upon what is most important at that point of the game. He also rarely does anything in game (particularly on defense) to disrupt an opponent's tempo/rhythm. Sometimes you need to throw in a press to speed up an opponent if they are very comfortable in the halfcourt. Sometimes you have to mix in a zone (particularly after a timeout) to slow an opponent down. Arkansas last night was very comfortable in running sets getting them easy shots at the rim....and LSU never really did anything to try to disrupt that. Beit a scheme change or a different lineup.

Every coach at this level understands the basic X's and O's. They all pretty much run the same plays/sets. I promise you, neither LSU nor Arkansas ran any "plays" last night the other had not seen on film. But basketball requires more on-the-fly adjustments than probably any other sport. It's not like football where there is a 40 second gap between the action and players specialize on only one side of the ball. It's not like baseball where the act of offense and the act of defense are two very distinct actions. It's a sport where the players on the floor are constantly transitioning between offense and defense. Often multiple times within a single minute. It's timely adjustments in the approach throughout the game that often make the difference rather than being a "good play caller". When and what adjustments to make takes the ability to quickly sense the flow of the game in that moment.

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It's difficult to set record expectations without first seeing the roster

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I disagree. The expectations are what they are. It’s CMM’s job to field a roster to meet those expectations.

We were awful in year one. We showed improvement in year 2. Year 3 has to continue to show improvement. We were 3-5 winnable games from being a tournament team this year. I think the expectation is make the tournament. It’s up to CMM to make that happen.

Right, they’re comparable, you said 2020-21 was comically worse and this years was better. Thats incorrect

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I kind of already considered Cook lost. Also are you thinking Collins or Stewart possibly enter the portal again?

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IT wouldn't be out the realm of possibility is what I'm saying. Neither did a thing this year, who knows how much their injuries are truly what's holding them back or its something else. They could have been sitting out this long to try and preserve this year as a medical redshirt or something as well, just never know.

I’m sure you’re using irrefutable data and comparisons to arrive at that conclusion.