We turned the ball over at an unbelievable rate to their press. 26 TOs IIRC. LSU isn't particularly skilled offensively, but they get a ton of cheap baskets off their pressing and trapping defense. I don't understand what we were trying to do against their press. Most effective press breaks have a trailer to give the ball handler an outlet before he crosses half court and another player breaking through the middle of the 2-2-1 trap. We took the ball into the corner at half court and just made it easy to trap - over and over again - leading to TOs and easy baskets. We had a lead at 20-19 and the next thing I knew it was 35-20, and that wasn't our only offensive lull in the game. I don't like Will Wade's pear-shaped cheating butt, but I like that press, particularly if the opponent has no clue about how to attack it. If you attack a trap correctly, you can usually get a 3 on 2 on the offensive that you can score against. But not us. We played right into those traps. Ugh....

I think that's the first time I've seen this team get their will broken. It was as obvious to the players as it was to us that they had no answer for that press.

Disappointing.

To be very clear, I'm not accusing them of not competing. But to me it looked like they stopped believing, and to this team's credit, that has been very rare this season.

The end is nigh...

Yep, about 3 weeks. Likely 6 more games. Just a matter of time. The decision has been made. Think about it - we will have paid Crean about $12.8 million in 4 years with another $3.2 million in the buy-out, so around $16 million - for 15 SEC wins - over $1 million per win in conference. Ugh....

I was talking to a guy earlier who said last night was like watching the HS varsity scrimmaging the B team for the 1st time. Just astounding that we can't handle a press better than that. SMDH....

And for a coach who spends all his time on offense, 26 TOs is just extremely poor.

Brooks will nail this. He just has to.

Nostradawgus said:

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Brooks will nail this. He just has to.

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It's more than just the hire, though. Will the financial commitment be there next year? The year after? I hope whoever he hires demands it.

Is Kirby Smart a better gameday coach than Mark Richt? I dunno. Maybe. But it doesn't matter, because he's a way better recruiter. Some of that is assuredly just Kirby being Kirby, but there's no question Georgia handed Kirby a blank checkbook and told him to do whatever he had to do to win. Facilities, travel budgets, assistants...all cost money, and all help land talent.

Will the basketball coach get a similar level of support? It takes a good coach, yes. It also takes money.

Bingo

StevieBuckets said:

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Nostradawgus said:

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Brooks will nail this. He just has to.

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It's more than just the hire, though. Will the financial commitment be there next year? The year after? I hope whoever he hires demands it.

Is Kirby Smart a better gameday coach than Mark Richt? I dunno. Maybe. But it doesn't matter, because he's a way better recruiter. Some of that is assuredly just Kirby being Kirby, but there's no question Georgia handed Kirby a blank checkbook and told him to do whatever he had to do to win. Facilities, travel budgets, assistants...all cost money, and all help land talent.

Will the basketball coach get a similar level of support? It takes a good coach, yes. It also takes money.

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I think the SEC is about to be paying out $80 million annually to member schools once OU and TX join. We will have whatever money we need. We only have 2 revenue making sports - men's basketball is one of them.