re: Woodward and insane contracts

Is it your money being spent? If not, then it doesn’t matter how it’s used.

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Whether SW overpays his hires is a fair question.

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It’s an indisputable fact, not a question.

The real disappointment about Woodward is the fact he didn't tell the NCAA to frick off like the other schools did.

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He’s also the lowest paid coach in the league

Maybe the actual problem was going cheap with the hire. I think he got what he paid for. Just a thought, but please carry on with your melt

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I think there are a lot of bad opinions here borne out of most fans just not really following basketball, LSU and nationally, as a whole.

As to the "insane" contract, it's not. In March of 2022 LSU was making a new hire after an unanticipated firing of their HC following the receipt of a NOA from the NCAA (really, IARP). Whether LSU HAD to fire Wade is a completely different discussion, but making a new hire was the position they were in. There was uncertainty in the program. Uncertainty as to potential sanctions. Uncertainty as to what would happen to the roster. Uncertainty as to how a new HC could/would recruit. LSU wasn't in an ideal bargaining position at that time. Furthermore, 5 other SEC schools where searching to make new hires as well.

McMahon was coming off a tremendous season with Murray St. He could have stayed there and received a raise. He was also being courted by other programs (notably, South Carolina). He was one of the biggest mid-major names in the cycle. Any new HC LSU hired was going to come into a degree of uncertainty with the program. So LSU had to overcome those reasonable concerns by any coach. The way they did it was with the length of the contract. Personally, I think 6 years should have been the length, but I wasn't involved in those negotiations and I can understand why McMahon would have demanded 7 years.

The opinion of it being a "cheap" hire is just, well, wrong. Six SEC schools made hires in that cycle. They were:

Georgia - Mike White (Florida)
South Carolina - Lamont Paris (Chattanooga)
Miss. St. - Chris Jans (New Mexico St)
Missouri - Dennis Gates (Cleveland St)
Florida - Todd Golden (San Francisco)
LSU - Matt McMahon (Murray St)

If you lined up the career resumes of all of those guys at the time only Mike White's would have been better than McMahon's. And he, himself, had basically been nudged out of Florida for underachieving. He pulled a Trent Johnson when he left LSU for TCU ahead of being fired. McMahon's annual salary was in the middle of that pack of new coaches and NONE of those guys were huge names in the sport. So for those saying the hire was "cheap", do you think every other SEC team in that cycle went "cheap" as well? And further, what "big" (expensive) coach do you think LSU could have realistically hired but didn't? Aside from the SEC schools, these were the other major conf. hires:

Duke - John Scheyer (Duke assistant)
Kansas St. - Jerome Tang (Baylor assistant)
Louisville - Kenny Payne (Kentucky assistant)
Maryland - Kevin Willard (Seton Hall)
Villanova - Kyle Neptune (Fordham)
Xavier - Sean Miller (fired by Arizona after 2021 season after same "scandal" involving Wade and others)

The point is, no one hired a "big" name and there were NO "big" name expensive coaches that were going to take the LSU job. LSU didn't go "cheap". They did what most major conf schools do when hiring a new HC...they hired one of the more in-demand mid-major HC's who was coming off a good season.

It wasn't a "sin" to hire McMahon. The contract he was offered wasn't "insane" relative to LSU's bargaining position at that time. The sin will be to keep him too long once it become abundantly clear he's not the guy who is going to make this program great. That time is probably now and any additional years of prolonging the inevitable will not "save" LSU any money. All it will do is result in a higher opportunity costs. They'll lose the opportunity to start to try to improve the program immediately. They'll lose the opportunity to stop the decline in revenue/profit that will occur if McMahon struggles the rest of the year yet is retained. It will be just 1 or 2 more wasted years that COULD have been spent with a new HC vastly improving the program.

I'm an LSU basketball fan. Because of that I really want to see McMahon succeed because that means LSU basketball is succeeding. But it just isn't happening and there are no discernable signs that will change to any relevant degree in 1, 2, 3 more years.

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That’s false, everyone that wasn’t out of eligibility or entering the draft was still here when he was hired. He was hired on March 22, the portal didn’t even open for nearly a month after that

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LSU literally had zero players on the team when they hired him. Do you NOT remember that?

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SO WHAT?

By May LSU had a complete roster...with 3 returning players. A roster that was thought highly enough that LSU was picked to finish in in the middle of the SEC despite having a HC who had never coached a game for a major conf. school and 10 new players.

This pathetic excuse gets parroted over and over again. Often by those who (1) are clinging to anything to justify McMahon's performance despite a woeful record against major conf. teams in his 2.5 years at LSU and/or (2) have ZERO understanding of the college basketball landscape beyond their 3-4 annual weeks of fandom of LSU basketball.

While the roster defections seemed like a nuclear disaster at the time, followers of college basketball very quickly realized it was commonplace when a coaching change was made (for any reason). In the three years McMahon has been at LSU almost every new HC hire has been left with a severely depleted roster. Hell, just this year alone Kentucky returned ZERO players from last year and Vandy only returned two. That's LESS than the 3 players McMahon inherited. Yet, several HCs have found more immediate success than McMahon had in year one and is having now.

That doesn't mean every coach that inherits a depleted roster is going to have immediate success. But to act like it is unreasonable to think a coach could flies in the face of reality.

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CMM buyout would be almost $10 million if we fired him after this year.

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This isn't true. Learn how to read a contract before spouting off about contracts.

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I mean shite this clown was coaching at Murray freaking State.

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Do you know anything about college basketball? Do you know where Murray State's last coach went after being at Murray State?

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Did you really have to sway him with that much money?

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Do you not remember what state the program was in when he was hired? He was one of the hottest young coaches in the country coming off 4 tournament teams in 5 seasons and LSU had to rebuild their program from the ground up, with a post season ban, with no players.

Just use your fricking brain.

How do people not understand how buyouts work?

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The only real mistake of this roster was the failure to get a lead guard. LSU has athletes, they just have no one to run the offense

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Similar things were said for YEARS during the Miles era regarding the QBs. What became clear to some while Miles was still the HC and to most after Miles left is that the QBs probably weren't the big problem. It was the HC and his offensive approach that made it difficult for any QB to succeed, illustrated clearly by the fact that since Miles left (along with the remnants of his offense approach carried on by Ensminger through 2018), LSU has routinely had a good passing game. One that has produced two Heisman Trophy winners. If they were forced to play under Miles in his offense Daniels and Burrow never become great QBs. Likewise, I don't think any PG becomes a great PG under McMahon at LSU.