Apathy can be a very devastating thing to societies, cities, and in this case, sports teams. Instead of having fear that things can get worse, the team and fan base have accepted that this is just about as bad as it’s going to get, and it’s a joke to many instead of a glaring problem. Tonight’s game against Auburn was tied at 45 just seconds into the second half, and THIS is the result? That doesn’t happen from being out-classed, that’s just apathy.
I’ve got a pretty good vantage point from my seat in the PMAC. A view where I can barely move my eyes up from this sentence and see both benches, and how they’ve acted throughout the game. On the near side is Bruce Pearl’s Tigers. Pearl is standing, yelling, directing traffic the entire game, occasionally turning around to hype his bench up for a crucial point of the game. On the far side, Johnny Jones and his...his Tigers. You’ve seen it all before. The most passion comes out when it’s criticizing a referee, the most traffic he’ll direct is yelling the play to his point guard when he looks back in confusion.
It’s a slouchy bench. You can just look over and feel it. Maybe it’s Jones and the team knowing he’s all but a dead man, maybe it’s the now fourteen game losing streak, maybe it’s the “announced attendance” of “6,638.” This team does not care and it’ll take another team reaching an unprecedented level of apathy for LSU to not end the year on a seventeen game losing streak. Or, eighteen, rather; we’ve got to play at least one game in the SEC Tournament. I don’t think there’s enough in the ATVS travel budget to send me to Nashville. I’m not sure I want there to be.
Despite all of this dumping on the team, we’ve got a shiny bright star named, you guessed it, Antonio Blakeney. The sophomore guard still has something to play for in NBA hopes, and he’s displayed that again with his 29 point, 6 rebound, and 2 assist performance, which included a 10-11 mark from the free throw line. He’s too good to us, bless his heart.
LSU’s next game will be against the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens this Saturday. That will tip off at 5 p.m., and will be televised on the SEC Network. Please enjoy Mardi Gras instead.