Why I Generally Don’t Cover College Basketball
If you’ve been following my blog, you’re probably aware I don’t write much about college basketball. It’s not because I’m not a fan – I actually pride myself on picking mostly correct tournament brackets over the years – but when I have free time during basketball season, a lot of times I’ll have 6 or 7 games recorded to watch and do that instead. If I don’t watch as many teams who may be in the tournament as possible, I tend not to pick as well.
With college football, I usually watch whatever it is I’m going to watch on Saturday, leaving other days for writing, preparing, etc. I don’t concern myself as much with any kind of postseason picks. Given that only four teams are playing for anything important, the postseason in football is kind of a crap-shoot anyway. I usually finish my computer rankings before I go to bed Saturday night/Sunday morning; so other than writing and research, all of the effort I put into following football is confined to about 14 hours on one day of the week.
Another part of a sport with so many games is whether I want to write about my team doing well or poorly, there’s always another game looming that can change that. So if there is a game on Saturday and I don’t have time to write, edit, and post a blog about it until Tuesday, what I’ve written might be moot by then.
Brief Description of Recent LSU Basketball History
I’m writing this now because even if LSU doesn’t finish well, there are milestones and things to be proud of. The last several years I’ve expected to be disappointed. Since the Final Four season in 2005-06, I can’t think of one season in which we made it farther than I thought we should have. When I’ve gotten my hopes up, I’ve just waited a few days (or maybe a couple of weeks) and with the help of the team I’ve gotten over it.
With as bad as things have been for the program at times, it’s amazing that there have been three Final Fours in the last 40 years (and 4 in the last 65 years). For instance, the Tigers lost 10 games or more in all but three seasons in the 27 years between the first two Final-Four appearances. In all but one season since the last Final Four appearance (in which the Tigers entered the tournament with 8 losses), the Tigers have also suffered 10 losses or more. During that second span, LSU has only won a single NCAA tournament game.
The 26 seasons that included the second, third, and fourth Final Four teams weren’t exactly full of success either. There were only four other teams in that span who won one NCAA tournament game or more. Only two of those teams (not including any of the teams for which Shaquille O’Neal played) made the Sweet 16. Seven teams during that span, by contrast, finished with losing records.
What Makes This Team Special (So Far)
With the win over Tennessee, who for much of the year has been #1, I have to acknowledge things are a bit different from the situation to which I’d become accustomed. It’s certainly possible that LSU or someone else could have been 16-10 and just shot really well and things fell into place for a win over a team like this. Last year, for instance, the Tigers beat #11 Texas A&M on the road (despite ending up with a losing record in conference).
But this year, one of LSU’s expected starters (Wayde Sims) was killed in the lead up to the season. On Saturday, arguably the top player on both sides of the ball (Tremont Waters) was sick and did not play. The Tigers’ second-leading scorer, Naz Reid, who is normally also one of the main defenders in the post, went 0 for 9 from the field and sat for 17 minutes due to foul trouble. In other years, this would have been an ugly blowout loss under these circumstances; and I wouldn’t have even faulted the team if it had been.
What makes the current situation stand out even more is LSU beat another then-5th-ranked team on the road 11 days before. It had been almost 40 years since the Tigers beat a team ranked that highly on the road. Even the 1980-1981 Final Four team, the last LSU team with this small a number of losses this far into the year, lost in Rupp Arena, one of only two regular-season losses for that team. With apologies to Billy Gillispie (who was fired after failing to win an NCAA tournament game in consecutive seasons), this was the first LSU team to win there over a ranked Kentucky team since.
The Kentucky game was another comeback win and another night where some of the top scorers (such as Waters and Skyler Mays) were held in check.
A couple other notes from that game. Only three times in 52 years had the Tigers overcome a halftime deficit of 8 points or more, and the Kentucky win was the second time in less than a week. It so happened that both were on the road against ranked teams (the other had been in Starkville). Also, John Calipari only averages one home loss per season since he took over the Kentucky program in 2009.
This team is actually unbeaten on the road in conference (the Tigers did lose to now-#6 Houston in pre-conference). Another remarkable thing is how many close games there have been. The last 7 consecutive games have been decided by 5 points or fewer, and LSU has won 5 of them. The Tigers are also 4-1 in overtime in conference play. Three of those overtime wins were on the road.
I’m going to backtrack a little bit to when I really started to pay close attention. Although I was encouraged by the win at Ole Miss (I’d seen the Rebels beat Auburn and Mississippi St.), I was still skeptical. I wasn’t sure if that might be something like the A&M game I mentioned last year: just one game not particularly apropos of anything (and maybe like the Aggies, the Rebels just happened to peak right before the game, which was apparently the case).
I first really got the feeling there might be something a little different about this team with the overtime win over Missouri. Missouri isn’t a great team, don’t get me wrong; but when you end up winning after being down 14 with 2:08 to play, you’ve done something impressive. It wasn’t a Division II school in a November tournament or exhibition; it was a road game against a credible program in a major conference.
Conclusion and Why You May Not Want to Bet the Farm on LSU
Before I finish, I want to include a couple of caveats. I don’t mean to suggest that the moment you get your brackets you need to put the Tigers in the Final Four regardless of the region or seeding.
While I think LSU can beat anyone anywhere now, the team also has a tendency to play down to the opposition, which can certainly cause problems in the postseason. The Tigers lost to Arkansas at home by 1 and beat the Razorbacks on the road in overtime. I think Arkansas is better than its record, but there is no reason LSU should be making a team 5-9 in the SEC look better than Tennessee and Kentucky regardless. After beating Kentucky, the Tigers only got out of Athens with a 4-point win. Georgia is only 1-13 in conference. There likely won’t be a worse team that LSU will play in the postseason.
After Georgia (and before Tennessee), LSU lost to Florida at home. The Tigers will have to play the Gators again and also have rematches against Texas A&M (whom the Tigers beat easily in College Station) and Alabama (whom the Tigers struggled to put away in Baton Rouge), so finishing at the top of the conference or even top two is far from guaranteed. They’re projected to be a #3 seed in the NCAA tournament, which usually makes a team safe to enter the round of 32, but if they fall below that I’d be very concerned about a loss in the first game.
Also, some of LSU’s second halves and final stretches would be less remarkable if it didn’t tend to fall behind in the first place, often due to poor shot selection. Although the Tigers were able to claw back against Kentucky and Tennessee as well as against some lesser teams, there could be an opponent in the post-season against which they are not so lucky.
For the reasons I mentioned though, I think it’s worth noting the accomplishments so far.
The Bayou Blogger 