Tigers look tired on the hardwood

Although I'm happy with the way the season turned out I'm disapointed in the last few games. I lay the blame for the loss to Miss St on the shoulders of Trent Johnson. No way should the starters played 35+ minutes against Kentucky. He has decent bench players...USE THEM!!! A Farrer or Warren or Bass for 5-10 minutes gives Taz or Spensor or Thornton a good 20 minute rest. Temple had chased Meeks around all night...you know he was dragging. If you start getting killed then you can put them back in but I just think they ran out of gas...Syracuse plays a lot of back-ups and you see where they were.

OK...don't flame me too much. I just call it like I see it and I'm am excited to see the Tigers in the Dance again. The biggest pluses will be the senior leadership. When this team is rested it hits on all cylinders and are tough to beat. Even when the offense goes into those cold spells they play havoc on defense so there shouldn't be a game where they don't have a chance. We should see Sweet 16 with no problem. With some luck, the Elite 8, and a little South Louisiana juju, the Final 4. After that I'd be as giddy a a schoolgirl after eating 12 Pixie Sticks.

 

Well, TGer'nLHornLand, I think you make a lot of good points. It is big that we're getting to the tournament in Trent Johnson's first year, and that he won the SEC outright, and that he is the SEC coach of the year. I'd say the chemistry of the team seems better, and we seem pretty solid, but if we don't represent ourselves well in the tourney, I'd say that's almost as disappointing as not making it in the first place. No doubt Trent Johnson took on a project with our program, I hope he can make it work out.

 

matchups are much more important. especially for a team with LSU's gaping hole.

i strongly dispute the notion that the team has played tired lately. they had some time off and won pretty handily against and athletic UK. look at the OR. id say they are the best stat to look at for energy. theyve done very well the last two games.

 

Regardless of tired looking or not here we go. We are in the dance.

 

Incorrect. Energy and effort are mutually exclusive. They had good shot selection, but their accuracy was terrible. That can only be attributed to legs - not mechanics, not luck, not opponent defense. There is no other reason but legs. Your shot accuracy is the very first thing to go when you are tired, and it went for everyone. Depth can always be an issue and this is why. The potential matchup vs UNC does not help.

Hopefully they regain their legs over the next week, and don't blow their wad vs Butler. A daunting task to be sure, but these guys played like a team this year, and I am happy. 2-3 years from now, LSU basketball will be back full swing.

 

Hey, you got something to look forward to, at least for 4 more days...:grin:

 

I don't want to be a naysayer here, but this is what I'm talking about. We have to be realistic about things. You can blame CTJ for losses, you can blame the players, you can blame Brady! At some level you can also say that CTJ did such a good job coaching up this team, that we took the SEC by storm. At some point, talent does catch up with you and other teams with younger players get better. Look, I'm not bashing the Tigers, Tas and Marcus Thornton are good players. BUT, at this stage of the game EVERYONE has good players. And, if you look at Miss St's team, and the recruiting job that they did in past years beating Brady and Butch--they have Varnado, who's a CJ with 20 more pounds, they have a Ravern Johnson and Dee Bost who can play as freshmen, they have a guy like Romero Osby off the bench. Look at the Miss St. recruiting classes from the last couple of years and you'll see that they outrecruited LSU. I'm not making excuses, I'm just saying that LSU is playing with Tas (who is a Parade AA), MT (a JUCO all american), but then they have a bunch of role players and perhaps they have already overachieved this year? LSU's tourney hopes pin on MT and TM hitting shots, guys like Bo and Garrett stepping up and having good games, and the entire team playing lights out defense and rebounding. That's always why you play the game, for sure, and LSU can get hot and they need to be hot to survive. But, we also have to be realistic and say that the overall team talent has to see a few years of CTJ's staff recruiting players to fill out their system and give this team more talent and depth in the future. (Once that's there, you can lower the minutes for the starters.)

Case in point, once you get past the first round, EVERY team you see has top 100, top 50 high school recruits on their team. Cinderellas are becoming rarer and rarer and non-power conference teams are rarer and rarer. Butler is a tough team but beatable, and if LSU get past them LSU sees UNC with their 8 plus McD AAs. If LSU was a 6 seed, they would have gotten Syracuse in round two, a tough match up in its own right. My point is reaching the sweet 16 is no cakewalk in any year, and at some level coaching can only take you so far. The players and the teams have to be good enough.

 

My comments were before getting the 8 seed. While we may be optomistic I find the lack of respect for the SEC this year hurt as as much as the losses. I understand the above posters point but where would we be if Anthony Randolph had hung around? There was depth...we just lost some of it.

 

i have no idea how you can come to the conclusion that the highest effort teams have no energy. and all teams that play with high energy play with no effort?

right. accuracy can only be attributed to tired legs. all three of the reasons you discount are also valid reasons. and you left out the big one--pressure, choking.

and i also disagree with you that shot accuracy is the first thing to go when players get tired. defense goes first (especially if they play tough m2m like lsu does). msu had lower fg% in 2nd half.