I'd like to say that basketball is a different game where close games are almost expected on a regular basis. We haven't been blown out of a game yet, which I think is a fairly good sign.
I think that's generally right, and frankly, why "football fans" don't always convert over well to watching the basketball games. There's so much parity in college basketball, and with only 13 kids on the college bball team, it's not always how well you recruit 85 players for your team like in football. Coaching and maturity and hustle of your players can make a difference. Outside of a few "dominant" teams in a college season, the ups and downs of a team/season are really dependent on how teams do in the "close, winnable" games. As we've seen in the history of LSU basketball since the Brady era (and outside of some dominant runs in the Brown era of sort of 81-86 and then again with the CJ/Shaq era), LSU never has been "dominant", blowing out folks. Their seasons have always been judged on beating those that they should and then, seeing how they did in those 6-8 "swing games" a year. That's always the difference between being in the dance and not. I think we're not to that stage where we can expect LSU to be a top 4 seed year in and year out, but I think Trent is trying to get LSU to the point where it is a tourney team being a top 6-8 seed every year. That's the goal. Frankly, we have been in most of our games, and that's in contrast to last year, where we were frankly just blown out of some games. I know it's hard for fans to see the improvement when we lose to Nicholls State or CCU, but if you really take a look at this roster, it's a better deeper roster than last year. And, it will be a better deeper roster next year. Now, we haven't necessarily played the same schedule (i.e., the likes of UConn, since we played in the Preseason NIT last year), but Memphis, Wichita St, Virginia are some of our bell weather games. You could maybe put Houston, CCU and North Texas (as teams that saw post season last year) as those next tier SOS games. But, Trent had always set this schedule this year as a schedule to warm up for conference play. I really hope fans come out and buy those tickets for SEC ball.... North Texas is also one of those games (since its Johnny Jones and LA players like Josh White) where I hope there is a good turnout.
