I just had this thought: If someone started a thread titled "Unprepared", say, in early July (when all three major sports are out of season) and had an initial post that read, "The coach didn't have his players ready to compete and win.", how many of you would automatically think, "John Brady"?
Actually, I think this team was very well prepared. John Brady's a good Xs and Os coach, or at least a competent one, I'm sure.
The problem--which has been referenced here, time and again (and again)--is the coach/players relationship. Some say that the players don't respect John Brady.
Well, having the coach preach and preach things like ball security and breaking the press, pounding the ball down low on offense to play to our strengths and slow the game down and, above all else, not having your guards get into a 3 point shooting, run and gunning pissing match with the other team's guards (who, frankly, are better at it than you)...and have, from the opening tip, 99.9% of that ignored is, I suggest, yet another example of how players in general hear John Brady but do not listen.
It happens, far more often on the NBA level, but it happens: a coach just loses his team and they treat him as a burden they have to bear and an obstacle they have to work around instead of as a source of inspiration.
You certainly can't fire a coach coming off a 20 win year and a Tourney birth, but you can ask (as I and others have in the past) if Brady's the best we can do. No, I don't expect Roy Williams to leave UNC and come here or Larry Brown to leave the Pistons, but it is reasonable to expect that LSU basketball be more consistently on par with other major "football first" schools like Florida, Oklahoma and Texas.
The feel I get, looking at those places from afar, is that players respect and believe in Billy Donovan, Kelvin Sampson and Rick Barnes.
Is it so much to ask that LSU have a similary-regarded coach in place to keep this program at a competitive level?
Surely there's a basketball Nick Saban who's tracking this job who sees the potential here. One day, we'll hire him...I hope. :geauxtige
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