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Message: [QUOTE="BBallF, post: 4629142, member: 10435"] I agree but I wanted to add another factor which I think is critical. It's scheduling. Look at LSU's pre conference schedule this year and it was a joke. Ours was brutal. We lost to ND and Md on Sundays away in early games after playing at home the Friday or Thursday night before. We had a very very tough OOC schedule and that tends to wear you down when you only have 5 players anyway. Over the course of a season it takes a toll. The BE is not exactly easy anymore either. If the OOC games are cakewalks, you rest your starters, play less minutes, go to your bench and have easy wins. It's especially effective when you have a deeper bench. The last 2 seasons was all about the injuries, principally to Paige. Two years ago it was a near miracle to almost win it all and this year we missed her sorely against OSU. Not having her, being beaten down, having players come back from injuries and not being even 80%, there was no coaching style or quick fix that could have cured the unresolved issues such as turnovers and lack of reinforcements underneath overnight. The point is that without a grueling OOC schedule and a deep bench and no injuries to your stars or only a combination of 2 of the above, they can go 38 minutes in a FF or Elite 8 game and not get depleted for the next game. I'm not suggesting that we should have an easy OOC schedule, I'm simply adding to the point that with our schedule and with the slew of serious injuries we had, the result in retrospect is not shocking. You can only keep the straw house together so long especially when you have endemic issues that never went away. [/QUOTE]

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