Another Ugly Win: LSU 65 Rice 61

Good description. It’s similar to what I was saying on another post, but Southern Man and, um, Jrlz didn’t want to agree with me.

We simply don’t yet have the level of play from 5 guys to qualify as a legit starting 5 for a competitive team, even in the SEC. That’s why we’re struggling to beat cupcakes.

1) I think Johnson is a very good coach. Brady didn’t leave him empty handed. I think recruiting good talent was actually Brady’s strength (Stromile Swift, Jabari Smith, Ronald Dupree, Tyrus Thomas, Glen Davis, and Anthony Randolph all went to the NBA for at least a couple seasons, and most of them are still there). Johnson was good at Nevada and Stanford, and the fact that he seamlessly picked up the team last year is a testament to his coaching ability. Last season we were stocked with seniors, so we’re sort of holding the bag this year with too many underclassmen. These things happen.

2) It will be a struggle this year. It’s not because I think we have no talent, or because I think we’re a “bad team,” as Southern Man misquotes me as saying. I said we’re just not that good of a team. The proof is on my side. 8-2 is a good start to the season in terms of W-L, but when we’re beating cupcake teams by 5 or less, WE’RE JUST NOT THAT GOOD OF A TEAM. Since “that good” is vague, I’ll define it as a team worthy of an at large bid to the NCAA tournament. A team good enough to earn an at-large bid is a team that should be beating Nipples State and Rice by 15 points each. Instead, our horses are having to play 35+ minutes against these cupcakes because we need them to hit game winners in the last minute.

3) Recapitulating my point from a previous post, I disagreed with the explanation that we’re just “rusty.” The experienced guys aren’t rusty. They’re stat machines. Our top three players average 15 ppg. They are not rusty. If this were a 3 on 3 tournament, we’d be a juggernaut. You can’t say the other guys are rusty because they’re not playing worse than we’re accustomed to seeing them play. They simply have not developed into the caliber of players needed to make this a good team.

4) Postseason? Well, I don’t know. Being a couple games over .500 will get us into the NIT, and that’s reasonable. I’ll have a better grip on this team by the end of January. Right now, I can’t see this team winning 10 SEC games. But I have no idea if we’ll win 7-9 SEC games, or if we’ll struggle and lose 10 or more SEC games. Although the SEC only has one elite team, there are several pretty good teams.