GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Had LSU lost 92-70 to No. 25 Ole Miss at home on Saturday, many LSU fans would have just turned the page of the Tigers’ sixth straight loss and continued to think:
-Bad team
-Not as talented as most in the SEC
-Can’t really blame coach Matt McMahon that much because the Tigers are at the bottom or near it in Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) available dollars to build a roster.
Apathy would have continued seamlessly and quietly.
But LSU lost 72-70 to No. 25 Ole Miss after leading 70-59 with 3:15 to play. On a much less significant stage, this was like the Atlanta Falcons losing Super Bowl LI to New England, 34-28, on Feb. 5, 2017, after leading 28-3 with less than three minutes to go in the third quarter. Or imagine, if Kansas City would have come back from a 34-0 deficit to Philadelphia late in the third quarter Sunday at the Super Bowl LIX and won.
LSU’s loss was embarrassing. And that’s worse in the eyes of an athletic director like LSU’s Scott Woodward than an apathetic fan base around a sport like men’s basketball, which at LSU is No. 5 on the popularity scale behind football, baseball, women’s basketball and gymnastics.
You really have to be good at being bad to lose like McMahon’s team did Saturday.
“To not be able to finish. To not be able to make the plays we needed to make down the stretch is devastating,” McMahon said. “It’s crushing.”
The Tigers (12-11, 1-9 SEC) did not score for the final 3:14 of the game. The Tigers also took only one shot over that span – a missed layup by guard Cam Carter with 1:36 left and LSU still up 70-65 – as it got outscored 13-0. That’s hard to do.
Over that span, LSU missed 2-of-2 free throws, turned it over three times and committed five fouls. Forward Corey Chest, who played very well for much of the game and grabbed 12 rebounds and blocked two shots, missed two critical free throws with 1:05 to play that could’ve put LSU up 71-67 or 72-67. Ole Miss fouled the right guy. He finished 1 of 6 from the line for five points.
Chest also committed an egregious technical foul after a foul with 4:59 left that resulted in four points for Ole Miss, which got within 63-57. It didn’t seem like it six seconds later when Carter hit a 3-pointer for a 66-57 lead, but without that technical on Chest, LSU could’ve pulled it out.
Meanwhile, the one shot LSU did take during the THREE MINUTES AND 14 SECONDS OF HELL should not have been taken. The Tigers had a three-on-one advantage in a fast break with Carter dribbling toward the basket. LSU was up five with 1:38 left as Carter saw the advantage and was hungry to get LSU some points. But by the time he shot, he was in traffic and missed. A foul could’ve been called, but it wasn’t.
What Carter should have done was not drive to the basket. There were 27 seconds left on the shot clock when he missed. He could’ve pulled back, passed off and killed some clock for a more open shot. It was a three-on-one break, but two Rebels were converging. Slow it down. Human nature says to try to score there, but a smarter play – considering the situation – and more discipline could have won out.
That’s why this game is on McMahon. His team played like it had never practiced a situation in which it needed to finish off a game with a nice lead by taking good care of the ball, killing the clock and scoring a bit here and there. Instead, his veteran players like Carter, a senior guard, and senior guard Dji Bailey committed the three turnovers down the stretch with Carter notching two.
McMahon also called only one timeout during the disastrous stretch – at 1:11 to go. In the end, he lost his team. And he knows it, at least. Carter and Chest definitely made critical mistakes, but McMahon threw neither under the Assembly Center.
“Heartbreaker,” McMahon said to open his press conference. “I wasn’t able to help our players to the finish line there at the end of the game.”
LSU next plays at an improving Arkansas (14-9, 3-7 SEC) at 8 p.m. Wednesday on ESPN2. The Tigers’ lone SEC win is against the then-SEC-winless Razorbacks, 78-74, on Jan. 14. But the Hogs and first-year coach John Calipari have won two of their last three – 89-79 at No. 12 Kentucky on Feb. 1 and 78-70 at Texas last week before a very good 85-81 loss to No. 3 Alabama on Saturday.
Then it’s two winnable – or choke-able games – at Oklahoma (16-7, 3-7 SEC) and South Carolina (10-13, 0-10 SEC) at home before the Tigers play five straight against ranked SEC teams to finish the regular season. Those are No. 3 Florida (20-3, 7-3), No. 5 Tennessee (20-4, 7-4), at No. 22 Mississippi State (17-6, 5-5), at No. 15 Kentucky (16-7, 5-5) and No. 18 Texas A&M (18-5, 7-3).
So, McMahon is looking at a 3-15 season – 4-14 at best.
He is in his third season with two bad ones around a decent one. Do not assume he will be fired, though. McMahon is on a seven-year contract at $2.8 million a year through 2029. Considering Woodward likes to delve into voodoo economics and the women’s basketball program lost $8.5 million last year, he may not be able to withstand paying McMahon $11 million not to coach the next four years.
If Woodward does fire McMahon after this season and chalks it up as a bridge hire before a major hire that could attract more NIL money, Woodward would have to enter the $4- to $5-million range for a new coach. Now, the price to swap out McMahon is getting close to $20 million when you count the assistants.
And would Woodward want to do that if he is possibly looking for a new football coach in a couple years should Brian Kelly stumble toward mediocrity again as he did last season? And all the while with women’s basketball a spending pit regardless of how much it wins.
If Woodward keeps McMahon, it will be very difficult to raise NIL money for a coach coming off a 3-15 or 4-14 season. NIL money tends to rise more significantly after a fresh new hire.
At least, LSU men’s basketball is still making money. It had a $1 million surplus last year, thanks to the profitable NCAA Tournament. Woodward’s best bet may be to swallow his hiring ego for a year or two and hope McMahon can get some better players via NIL through the new revenue sharing.
In the meantime, Woodward needs to update his men’s basketball coach wish list while gathering another war chest of other people’s money.
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