LSU was ranked as high as No. 5 in
the nation at one point this season. But now, after 22 games, the Tigers are
13-9 overall and an abysmal 2-7 in SEC play.
What we were once calling a skid
after the loss at Georgia became a slide when LSU lost to
Alabama at
home last Wednesday. That slide grew into an all-out freefall when John Brady’s
Tigers went to Starkville on Saturday and lost
their fifth straight – an 85-78 defeat at the hands of Mississippi State.
A year removed from one of the most
magical runs in the program’s history, the defending SEC champions fell into
sole possession of last place in the SEC Western Division with Saturday’s
loss.
THUD!
The question as to where LSU will
be seeded in the NCAA Tournament has grown into an “if”: Will the Tigers even make the
tournament? With seven games left in SEC play, including trips to Kentucky,
Tennessee, Ole Miss and Auburn and home games remaining with Mississippi State,
South Carolina and defending national champion Florida, the question might
become this: Can the Tigers win
another game?
After LSU got blown out by
Arkansas on
the road, the Tigers have found creative ways to lose close games night after
night. After suffering the most offensively anemic night in recent memory in an
11-point loss to Vanderbilt, Brady’s team has dropped back-to-back three-point
losses to Georgia and Alabama, and
it fell by eight points to State after the game was tied with less than eight
minutes left in the game.
Is it bad luck or are the Tigers
just snake bitten?
LSU is no doubt talented.
Three of five starters returned
from last season’s Final Four team as well as several members of the supporting
cast. Plus, Brady was thought to have brought in a couple of quality
transfers.
As the season spirals out of
control for the 2007 Tigers, fingers are beginning to get pointed. And the most
popular culprit is always Brady. One of the fans’ favorite whipping posts in
years past, Brady silenced his critics with last year’s league crown and NCAA
Tournament run.
My, how a five-game losing streak
can turn a fickle fan base on a coach. Brady is taking the brunt of the
criticism, and he is shouldering the blame like any coach is supposed to do.
First and foremost, for the
numbskulls out there calling for his job – get a life. Brady won an SEC title
and went to the Final Four a year ago. He has proven himself as a coach in this
league and doesn’t deserve the boneheaded criticism he gets constantly from the
hotheads out there.
However, there are some things that
do fall on the coach’s shoulders. The point guard position has always been an
area of concern for Brady-coached LSU teams. Tack Minor came to LSU as the
Tigers’ next great point guard, but his disappointing career came to a
depressing end last week when he was dismissed from school. Darrel Mitchell was
about as close to a true point guard as the Tigers have had under
Brady.
Another glaring problem with this
LSU team is its consistency. Sure, it is impressive when Glen Davis bounces out
and shoots a 3-pointer, much like he did in a 27-point performance against State
on Saturday. But the Tigers are better served when Davis is in the paint
doing the things he did in the past in leading LSU to a slew of victories.
Davis’ newfound
perimeter game (no doubt aimed at catching the eyes of NBA scouts) is more of a
detriment to the Tigers, who need the big man inside playing the post. His
perimeter game isn’t consistent enough to benefit LSU every night.
While I have been a bit critical of
Davis in recent
weeks, you can’t entirely fault the big man for taking a lot of shots from the
outside. It’s not like anyone else is making them, either – on a consistent
basis, that is.
Terry Martin burst on the scene as
the guy who would knock down the open three, much the way Darrel Mitchell did.
That hasn’t been the case, though. Sure, Martin will heat up every now and then,
but it is generally feast or famine.
Then there is the
defense.
Brady’s teams have always been
defensive minded, and the 10th-year coach stresses that above all
else. But it is obvious these Tigers are missing Tyrus Thomas in their interior
defense. Magnum Rolle was supposed to step into the hole Thomas left vacant.
That hasn’t been the smoothest of transitions – and it shows.
Then, on top of all of this, toss
in the fact LSU hasn’t gotten a break. The Tigers have been awfully unlucky, and
the list of misfortunes continues to grow. A year ago, Darrel Mitchell bailed
LSU out on a number of last-second shots. Things had a habit of going LSU’s way
on its run to the Final Four.
Nothing has seemed to go Brady’s
and the Tigers’ way this season. Under Brady, LSU typically has been a strong
team coming down the stretch. Tiger fans had better hope that is the case this
February.
From the mailbag:
I am having a difficult time
understanding exactly why Nick Saban is being ridiculed in most major media
outlets for leaving his post as the Miami Dolphins head coach to take the same
position with the University of Alabama.
I will grant you that on December
21, he did say, "I guess I have to say it.
I'm not going to be the Alabama coach." And yes, on January 3, he did indeed
take the job at Alabama.
Please inform me of how he should've handled this situation.
Or for that matter, how you would
have handled it if put in Coach Saban's shoes.
It's a Catch 22. If he is honest with the media and
admits that he is interested in exploring his options, he will lose all
credibility with his current Dolphins players. And what if he decided to stay in
Miami, would he
ever be able to regain control of a team that thinks he has one foot out the
door?
Let me put it another way. If one of my sales reps comes to me
saying that he is interviewing for a similar position with one of my
competitors, I would start the interview process to find his replacement. Let's assume for a minute that my sales
rep comes back to me a week later and says that he wants to stay. In the back of my mind, I know that he
is unhappy and it's just a matter of time before he is gone. Am I going to pretend that we never had
the conversation just because he has decided to stay? Certainly not.
If Nick Saban is such a bad guy,
then why did Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga give Coach Saban his blessing to
leave? At the end of the day, this
is an issue between the Coach and the Owner. And if the Owner is OK with it, why
aren't you?
Jim Willson
Seattle, WA
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Matt Deville is the editor of Tiger
Rag magazine. Reach him at matt@tigerrag.com.