2023 LSU Offseason Thread

[SECbbfan24]

Kim Mulkey is funny but smart. Everyone will get playing time and LSU will be ready come conference time that’s for sure.

I think the issue people have is not as much as facing weaker teams, but so many teams in the 300s. There are plenty teams in the top 100 or 150 that would be of much better quality. You can schedule weak but there is no defense scheduling teams this bad

Kim’s first team at lsu would beat the door knobs off these bottom tier teams by 30+ and now Kim has legit talent coming through the doors. I think it’s a bit of a waste and failure on Kim’s part. Also withstanding two games, no one is going to want to cover them nationally until SEC play as no one wants to watch 60 point blow outs every week IMO

I find this to be extremely boring for the players and season tickets holders. It was evident the players got bored last ooc schedule by December if you watched the games

 

[UConnCat]

Three games on neutral courts (Colorado, Niagara, Virginia), 2 road games (@Southeastern Louisiana and @Coppin State) and 9 home games. The game against Virginia Tech is part of the ACC/SEC challenge so it'd be fair to say this was not a game Kim chose to put on the schedule. Preseason number 1.

 

[Fowlball]

Kim Mulkey is funny but smart. Everyone will get playing time and LSU will be ready come conference time that’s for sure.

How? Playing such weak competition

 

[Big12wbbFan]

Sad schedule for a team as talented as LSU……. SEC will be stronger this year. We will see if playing this weak competition affects LSU’s performance in regular season.

 

[visitingcock]

How? Playing such weak competition

Well, they did pretty well in the conference last year after playing a slightly weaker non-conference schedule. Only one regular season conference loss to the conference champs and a forgivable tournament loss to Tennessee.

So, the last two national champs each had one regular SEC loss and one SEC tourney loss while being otherwise undefeated.

 

[BlueDevils]

I think the issue people have is not as much as facing weaker teams, but so many teams in the 300s. There are plenty teams in the top 100 or 150 that would be of much better quality. You can schedule weak but there is no defense scheduling teams this bad

Kim’s first team at lsu would beat the door knobs off these bottom tier teams by 30+ and now Kim has legit talent coming through the doors. I think it’s a bit of a waste and failure on Kim’s part. Also withstanding two games, no one is going to want to cover them nationally until SEC play as no one wants to watch 60 point blow outs every week IMO

I find this to be extremely boring for the players and season tickets holders. It was evident the players got bored last ooc schedule by December if you watched the games

My understanding she’s not worried about the quality of play more so instilling her philosophy to the players before conference/tourney time. It works. Defending national champions.

I’ll take being bored in December if the results is being the last team standing in April.

 

[jake0414]

I don't feel like you felt very strongly about this statement but I'm not buying that excuse for the schedule. Generally, they set up a home and home anyway so that's not really a reason. UCONN, South Carolina, etc... - somehow they all manage to schedule strong teams and also have very strong home courts. Bottom line is - if Kim wanted to schedule better, she could. She obviously doesn't and that's her prerogative, but she should own that instead of acting like some victim.

Don’t see Mulkey changing her approach until it starts to cost her in terms of tournament seeding. The whole Net ranking system has some flaws and the selection committee did assign 28-2 LSU a 3-seed despite it embarrassingly weak schedule last year. Assigning a 5-seed for such a weak schedule would take away hosting privilege for NCAA tournament rounds 1 and 2 and would motivate Mulkey to beef up the schedule but I can’t imagine the tournament selection committee doing that. So crush on those patsies.

 

[jdote33]

Cool to see the full team hooping together. Kinda surreal tbh.

 

[Fowlball]

Cool to see the full team hooping together. Kinda surreal tbh.

I think they should have a reality show like Hardknocks.

 

[LSUAlum96]

Some of y'all need to have a little cheese with all that whine.

This ain't the first year Kim has scheduled like this. She did it at Baylor as well, and it has resulted in four NCAA championships in 20 years. If Geno and Dawn want to schedule difficult non-conference schedules that's their prerogative. The SEC will be the best conference in basketball this year and LSU will be MORE than prepared come tournament time.

 

[skilz]

Some of y'all need to have a little cheese with all that whine.

This ain't the first year Kim has scheduled like this. She did it at Baylor as well, and it has resulted in four NCAA championships in 20 years. If Geno and Dawn want to schedule difficult non-conference schedules that's their prerogative. The SEC will be the best conference in basketball this year and LSU will be MORE than prepared come tournament time.

And to add - Geno scheduled hard non-conference because conference was a cake walk.

 

[militarydog]

And to add - Geno scheduled hard non-conference because conference was a cake walk.

 

[UConnCat]

And to add - Geno scheduled hard non-conference because conference was a cake walk.

And to add - during the years (2008-2013) when the Big East was the best women's basketball conference in the country Geno never put together a non-conference schedule like what we've seen Kim do last year and this year. Were there easy games? Yes, but the schedules always included multiple ranked non-conference opponents, including games on the road and in the middle of the Big East schedule (January and February).

 

[Alydar]

For a legit No 1 team, any game against a non-top 25 team is a cakewalk. Or it should be. Other than Scar and Tenn there is no one in the SEC that should give the best team in wcbb much of a game unless the No 1 team plays poorly. And in that case they shouldn't be No 1.

 

[visitingcock]

For a legit No 1 team, any game against a non-top 25 team is a cakewalk. Or it should be. Other than Scar and Tenn there is no one in the SEC that should give the best team in wcbb much of a game unless the No 1 team plays poorly. And in that case they shouldn't be No 1.

Georgia can be a knife fight though. Remember their coach. Mizzou is a knife fight for us. Bad blood between our teams since Sophie Cunningham. They cut us up in our game two years ago.

 

[LSUAlum96]

And to add - during the years (2008-2013) when the Big East was the best women's basketball conference in the country Geno never put together a non-conference schedule like what we've seen Kim do last year and this year. Were there easy games? Yes, but the schedules always included multiple ranked non-conference opponents, including games on the road and in the middle of the Big East schedule (January and February).

And to add, remember back during those years Geno was getting ALL the top talent. He didn't need to schedule like Kim because it didn't matter. They were going to be in the final four every year because of their talent. The talent in this decade is a lot more spread out among the top ten programs than it was 10-15 years ago.

Point being, LSU will be fine. Their conference schedule will be hard enough to prepare them for anything in the post season.

 

[Bone Dog]

It’s fair to say Kim has a tougher conference so OOC can be a little weaker. But how much weaker? So let’s look at that conference. I’d say if LSU doesn’t win at least once against SC and wipe the floor with Tennessee, they shouldn’t be a presumptive #1 seed in March. Maybe not even host a regional. A cupcake OOC schedule shouldn’t make up for real losses. But we all know the NET is going to make it possible for Kim to skate into hosting a regional even with 4 or 5 losses because it overvalues point differential. On the other hand, Geno and Dawn have scheduled tough, and this means they probably will deserve a #1 seed even with 4 or 5 losses. But the NET is not likely to recognize this.

 

[visitingcock]

It’s fair to say Kim has a tougher conference so OOC can be a little weaker. But how much weaker? So let’s look at that conference. I’d say if LSU doesn’t win at least once against SC and wipe the floor with Tennessee, they shouldn’t be a presumptive #1 seed in March. Maybe not even host a regional. A cupcake OOC schedule shouldn’t make up for real losses. But we all know the NET is going to make it possible for Kim to skate into hosting a regional even with 4 or 5 losses because it overvalues point differential. On the other hand, Geno and Dawn have scheduled tough, and this means they probably will deserve a #1 seed even with 4 or 5 losses. But the NET is not likely to recognize this.

No but the committee will recognize SOS.they have deviated from the NET plenty.

 

[SECbbfan24]

It’s fair to say Kim has a tougher conference so OOC can be a little weaker. But how much weaker? So let’s look at that conference. I’d say if LSU doesn’t win at least once against SC and wipe the floor with Tennessee, they shouldn’t be a presumptive #1 seed in March. Maybe not even host a regional. A cupcake OOC schedule shouldn’t make up for real losses. But we all know the NET is going to make it possible for Kim to skate into hosting a regional even with 4 or 5 losses because it overvalues point differential. On the other hand, Geno and Dawn have scheduled tough, and this means they probably will deserve a #1 seed even with 4 or 5 losses. But the NET is not likely to recognize this.

LSU will probably be a 3 or 4 seed in March at best. I think TN and SC are too deep and big for lsu to handle, so that is 3 or so losses right there alone. Miss St could even sneak past them plus an unexpected loss Kim has every year.

Kim made a massive mistake this off-season going after big names vs talent in position of needs.

 

[Bone Dog]

they have deviated from the NET plenty.

Actually, they tend not to deviate from it very much. It’s the starting point, and deviations are mainly logistical, not a true departure from the principles underlying the NET.

LSU will probably be a 3 or 4 seed in March at best.

I think you mean they’ll be a 3 or a 4 seed in a region, not a 3 or 4 overall seed. I would agree with this. In other words, they’ll be ranked somewhere from 9-16 overall.

 

[Alydar]

Georgia can be a knife fight though. Remember their coach. Mizzou is a knife fight for us. Bad blood between our teams since Sophie Cunningham. They cut us up in our game two years ago.

I remember the Ga coach from her days at UCF. The AAC had a few teams that thought they were playing rugby.

 

[UConnCat]

And to add, remember back during those years Geno was getting ALL the top talent. He didn't need to schedule like Kim because it didn't matter. They were going to be in the final four every year because of their talent. The talent in this decade is a lot more spread out among the top ten programs than it was 10-15 years ago.

Point being, LSU will be fine. Their conference schedule will be hard enough to prepare them for anything in the post season.

All the talent. LOL. Meanwhile, Kim has a roster that includes Reese, Van Lith, Morrow and the #1 recruit AND will be preseason #1. With all that talent she responds with a schedule that includes a bunch of home pay-games. It's weak, uninteresting and beneath the talent level. You'd think Kim would find it boring.

I'm not sure why it's so difficult to just admit that and say Kim should do better.

 

[diggerfoot]

And to add, remember back during those years Geno was getting ALL the top talent. He didn't need to schedule like Kim because it didn't matter. They were going to be in the final four every year because of their talent. The talent in this decade is a lot more spread out among the top ten programs than it was 10-15 years ago.

Point being, LSU will be fine. Their conference schedule will be hard enough to prepare them for anything in the post season.

For the period you just mentioned Duke had more McDonald’s AA than UConn, while Tennessee, Stanford and ND recruited on a par with UConn as well.

This is a common misconception, that high school talent is ever increasing and consequently the talent is becoming more spread out. In truth, the talent out of high school has been decreasing since a peak about 20 years ago. In truth, there are always a handful of programs with concentrated talent.

The only kernel of truth behind your claim is that UConn has consistently been one of those programs with concentrated talent for the past 25 years, while other programs come and go.

 

[triaddukefan]

For the period you just mentioned Duke had more McDonald’s AA than UConn, while Tennessee, Stanford and ND recruited on a par with UConn as well.

This is a common misconception, that high school talent is ever increasing and consequently the talent is becoming more spread out. In truth, the talent out of high school has been decreasing since a peak about 20 years ago. In truth, there are always a handful of programs with concentrated talent.

The only kernel of truth behind your claim is that UConn has consistently been one of those programs with concentrated talent for the past 25 years, while other programs come and go.

Let's leave Duke out of this discussion please.