LSU Men’s Basketball Picked To Finish 15th Of 16 In SEC, But Tigers Are Improved On Paper

GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor

The numbers around the LSU men’s basketball program cannot be ignored.

They are single digit, and they are low:

… 3-15 in the Southeastern Conference last season for 15^th in a 16-team league and 14-18 overall.

… 2-16 in the SEC in 2022-23 for 14th and 14-19 overall.

And a prediction for 15th again in the SEC in a poll of reporters at the SEC Media Days in Birmingham on Monday with no players on any All-SEC teams. That after the Tigers were picked to finish 15th last year as well.

LSU coach Matt McMahon, 47, enters his fourth season and will have three years remaining on a seven-year contract at $2.8 million a year after this season. With the new revenue sharing, the program did receive more money for roster reconstruction, but LSU is still in the lower third of the league in NIL spending – in single digits for millions of dollars as opposed to $15 million or more for many SEC teams.

But McMahon does have a better team on paper with the return of junior forward Jalen Reed from a knee injury and the portal additions of top point guard Dedan Thomas Jr., a junior from UNLV, 6-foot-10 junior forward Mike Nwoko of Mississippi State, senior shooting guard PJ Carter of Memphis and 6-9 senior forward Marquel Sutton of Omaha. There is also top high school point guard Jalen Reece of Orlando.

“I don’t feel any extra pressure,” McMahon told Tiger Rag last week in an extended interview. “I think every year the landscape of college athletics as a whole, basically for every player and coach, it’s a one-year deal. The key to me is I put my focus on what I can control, as cliché as that is. My focus is how do we max out this team? How do we build the best team we can have now? That’s how I approach every day.”

That said, McMahon has had one non-losing season in the SEC at LSU when he went 17-16 overall and 9-9 in the league in his second year in the 2023-24 season. And he knows winning. McMahon won big at Murray State – 26-6, 16-2 in the Ohio Valley Conference in 2017-18 and 28-5 and 16-2 in 2018-19 with back-to-back NCAA Tournaments and a 31-13 and 18-0 season in 2021-22 with a third NCAA Tournament appearance. He is 2-3 as head coach in the NCAA Tournament.

“I’m not thinking, ‘Oh, man, I’ve got to win this number of games. I’ve got to advance this far in the Tournament,’” he said. “Those are outcomes and results that matter and that are important. But I try to put 100 percent of my focus on getting better every day, improving our team. “

Defending national champion Florida was picked to win the SEC, followed by Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas in the top five. The rest of the predicted order of finish had Auburn, Missouri, Ole Miss, Texas and Mississippi State at the six through 10 spots, and Vanderbilt, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Georgia, LSU and South Carolina.

“I want to win. I want LSU back in the NCAA Tournament and winning games,” McMahon said. “And we’ve been able to construct a roster that gives us a better opportunity to do so.”