Exactly, can't afford to lose anyone this year!

I didnt realize LSU was this far behind the BIG BOYS, UCONN is supposed to be a little down right now. I couldnt tell

OK, my after-game thoughts are as follows:

- LSU got in foul trouble early. blame the refs somewhat for calling really ticky-tacky fouls. they need to realize this is the BEGINNING of the friggin' season and teams are still rusty.

- storm warren fouls TOO much, and he is TOO big an asset to this team to be sitting on the bench because of it.

- LSU didn't have too many men to come off of the bench because harris started and green is still too hurt to be a threat. even though he DID have his moments.

- tas' and bo were NON-FACTORS. mostly because of what UConn was doing defensively, but partly because they never looked comfortable in the game. same could be said of chris bass.

- LSU scorers took terrible shots in the game tonight. can't beat a team like UConn that way.

- it really just wasn't LSU's night. i know they played the 12th ranked team in the country, but they looked awful. had they played with the same intensity they played with the first 3 games of the season, they could have actually been in this game.

- three point shots were, again, a non-factor. and really NOTHING went right for LSU tonight.

which brings us to the positives:

playing a game the caliber of UConn this early in the season with a young team without a lot of depth is only going to help. ludwig looked GREAT at times, love the kid's tenacity.

in hindsight, the fouls are what killed LSU. the way those refs were calling the game, the more experienced team would have won the game 99% of the time.

i hope bo's not seriously hurt and i hope that tas takes more initiative in controlling the game. we need to do a better job of rotating guys on-and-off the bench and have a specific gameplan for those guys instead of just throwing them in there.

we need to involve tasmin more on the inside to compliment storm warren. and BO NEEDS TO DO A BETTER JOB from the outside. we rebounded horribly and gave up WAY too many second (and third, and fourth) chance points while LSU didn't get many at all.

it sucks we lost this game, but i think CTJ will make the best of this loss. sucks that we lost on national TV and bobby knight was making fun of LSU the entire game. that kind of pissed me off a bit. sumbitch should know that this is a VERY VERY VERY young team. o:

I was upset I missed the game until seeing your message that dumbass Knight was handling the game. I refuse to listen to that jackass. I still think we need to beat his ass for cheating us out of a New Orleans Final Four in 1987.

All in all, this is a good road trip for a very young team.

You are looking at the difference between a 100 mile trip and a 1000+ mile trip for LSU. Add that to the big talent difference. The veterans on the team, Tas and Bo, both played terribly. Tas had back to back turnovers, and Bo shot 2-14 or something. We need them to carry us in games, and Warren needs to stay out of foul trouble.

Boobie Knight is and will always be an azzhole. I only got to see a couple minutes of the game, but I watched the very beginning when they first came on and he was boring me to death with the monotone way he talks. Just because someone knows something about basketball doesn't mean they will be a good broadcaster on ESPN. He looks like a corpse (because he chooses to) and he's boring as $hit.

And for the one or two people that will likely come on here and say he does a good job, no he doesn't and you can kiss my a$$, but Happy Thanksgiving anyway. ESPN keeps working with him because they're probably too scared to tell him he sucks thinking that he might choke them like his used to choke his players. He was a great basketball coach...that's all Boobie is.

I agree with most of your post, especially above. Look, my take after watching the game is that this was going to be an uphill battle all along... talent wise, let's not forget that UConn has about 4-5 potential draft guys, a loaded frontline, and good guards. These guys are all more experienced as well, and frankly LSU needed a very good game from its big three and hope that UConn played an off night to have a chance. Instead they get the perfect storm of Bo and Tas being ineffective, Storm Warren having foul trouble. I don't necessarily blame the refs, and foul trouble, because frankly LSU was going to need to foul their bigs to stop them. I'm more disappointed in the play of Bo (very UN-point guard like on his part, i.e., forcing bad shots, not setting up his team mates, and continuing to press offensively when LSU needed to keep the pace under control), Tas' lackluster performance and the at times weak looking defense, i.e., bad positioning, not getting back on defense and defensive rebounding.

I think though, in a game like this (and you're going to have a few every season), you play alot of your guys, try different things and see what other players can do. I actually love the fact that I saw some good things from Green, Ludwig and Kinsley. Ludwig in particular held his own in the paint--he establishes position pretty well and isn't a bean pole like Dennis Harris. Green looked like he wasn't in as much pain and he will get better this season. Frankly, LSU has to have him b/c he's 6'10" and 230. He at least looked active, got to some lose balls, and showed some low post aggressiveness. He still has to rebound with more authority and have better hands with the ball. With Harris, you saw what him lacking about another 20 pounds does. I think he's going to be an interesting match up guy... Trent can use him when opposing teams allow him to float around and not be a liability on defense, but against a deep, big and athletic team like UConn, it's hard for Harris not to be picked on every time he's guarding a good post.

All in all, I was hoping for a showing within 10 of Uconn. I'm a little disappointed really with how our "senior" leaders performed. Especially knowing that this was a big stage, I'm sorry Bo and Tas' didn't play well. Bo clearly let his shooting guard tendencies get the best of him tonight (I actually thought Bass played very WELL--he hit a 3 and some tough dribble drives and there were glimmers of improving shot). Tas' also is a mystery for me. I think honestly, him playing a "pure" 3 will take time. He's such a tweener and he's not the best dribbler. Often times he tried to get too fancy with the ball, spin dribbles, etc. He doesn't necessarily create for himself on the perimeter, and relies more on midrange screens and curls, set shots and interior cuts, posts. LSU has to find a way to get him more involved in the right spots. I think the hard part with this again, is with Bo not looking to pass and the other guys being so young, Tas is not showcasing his skills. I also think he has been pressing early this season. Hopefully Trent will get this right as the season goes on.

Lastly, I didn't think Knight was horrible, but I did think it was funny that his missed a few commentary calls. He did make some good points about some of the young LSU players. I respect him though more than Gottlieb in the after game show, who was fairly dismissive of both LSU and Arizona St, and seemed to only want to talk about Duke and UConn. He is a chump.

Not to be too down on the Tigers, though. As was said, this is a young, young team and a transition year. You go to these kinds of tourneys to get the experience and some times a "beat down" is needed for the kids to understand what it takes to be that good. I think this is a case though of LSU not playing well and UConn just being very up for this game, with something to prove. I'm very much more interested in how the Tigers rebound in the consolation game. If they come home 1-1, you have to call the trip a very resounding success.

:geauxtige:bball::geauxtige

I didn't see if Bo came back after the ankle injury? If not did anyone get a prognosis?

Our bench depth is going to hurt all season. And if we don't take bettter shots we are going to have all sorts of trouble once SEC play starts. I saw shots my son's high school team wouldn't take.

didnt get to see the game. im curious, i saw that dotson played a lot but didnt score. did he guard well? was he on their 2?

gonna be a long year. could "survive" without post experience if there was experience at guard, but having experience at 3/4 doesnt mean much.

No one guarded well, UConn scored at will.