unless there were upsets in every round of lsu's future oppt it would be the biggest upset i can think of. i guess right under miracle on ice.
Interesting debate.... one of which team did less with more? :wink: Talent wise, it's debatable. You look at that '01 team and truthfully, Torris Bright was an All-LA type recruit who proved he could play his FROSH year. Dupree would play in the NBA. Temple was a solid contributor and Beshara was decent. This year, you could argue that Tas', Warren, Spencer made an SEC caliber line up, and I'd probably agree with you. what I'd say, however, is that experience was not a push, and most of all what hurt this team in my opinion was injuries. Injuries that led to less practice time and inefficiency for the players. Truth be told, Harris, Ludwig, Green, Dotson were in essence FROSH, despite your listing them as SOPHs. The number of game time minutes for them was remote and Green, Harris, Spencer, and Dotson all had serious injuries that kept them from being 100%. Again, sort of arguing which team was worse despite themselves, but i'd actually make the case that Trent actually coached these guys up towards the end, with walk ons getting significant minutes. I'd be curious to see what the margin of victory/loss was from the two teams, and the minutes that these sophomores got their FROSH years.
the lsusports.net cumulative stats for that year only goes to Nov but by looking at box scores it looks like temple and dupree averaged about 15 min/game their Fr seasons. so, ok, i'll give a slight experience edge to 00-01, but i wouldnt think that would override depth. 09-10 team had 7 major contributors and 3 other significant contributors (green, kinsley, populist). 00-01 had 5 + 1 (charlie thompson). id also say the 09-10 team had an advantage of having more appropriate pieces, or really, that the 00-01 team was handicapped because every player was a 2/3 hybrid. they were all 6'4"-6'8" and thin. losing roland and bridgewater that year was bigger than losing farrer and the minimal time lost for green and spencer. bridgewater left the team with no true post player and roland was best on the team for assists, 3pt and steals. season pt differential ----00-01 +3 ppg, 09-10 -5ppg in conf pt differntial ----00-01 -9 ppg, 09-10 -11ppg
Again, interesting debate. From the looks of the scoring differential, the '01 team scored better, but then in conference stunk it up almost as bad as this year's team. I'll note that Brady though had a penchant for scheduling cupcakes in the non-conference, so that doesn't entirely surprise me. LSU had to play the likes of UConn, WKU, WSU and Utah this year in the non-conference. All that said, I will say this on the depth vs. quality issue. I'll take a good, balanced starting five still over a unbalanced say deep 7. I'm not sure I'd call this team "deep" when you consider Trent played more guys by necessity (b/c starters like Chris Bass or Garrett Green weren't delivering so you go to bench players). You still ultimately have an issue with Bo and Tas really being the only scorers on the floor, and noone else with the ability to really step up (at least this year, due to injuries/limited experience). At least the '01 team had a little bit more quality across the starting five, and Beshara was 6'9" I think and those teams back then rebounded fairly well b/c of their overall length. Again, not sure I like debating in futility... but, it's an interesting testament to basketball sometimes and the ups and downs of teams. Sometimes good coaching can really only take you so far, if you don't have the horses. Sometimes, if you have the horses, coaching makes all the difference. :wink: When you consider again the "falls" from grace that we've seen this year, look at UNC. Ironic that the two teams in the tourney that played each other (ACC champs vs. SEC champs, who played the NC the closest) fell from grace. I'd say Trent actually did a better coaching job this year than Roy, who has 3 potential first rounders on his team...
