Exhibit A: Why LSU’s season should be over

Published 6:47 am Sunday, March 13, 2016

<span style="font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase; font-family: ‘Myriad Pro’;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">MEMO TO:</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Honorable NIT Selection Committee.</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase; font-family: ‘Myriad Pro’;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">RE:</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU basketball team.</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase; font-family: ‘Myriad Pro’;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">CONCLUSION:</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Just say no.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Don’t do it, please.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Yes, it will be tempting to call LSU’s name tonight after the NCAA tournament gets done belly-laughing at the notion that these Tigers ever belonged anywhere near a Big Dance that matters.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But … please.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And it’s not a matter of whether the LSU basketball team deserves a spot in a tournament that hasn’t had any real relevance in, oh, 60 years or so.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s not about that.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In today’s society, it seems, you can always find one last chance for everybody to get a trophy.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That’s not LSU’s fault.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Again, though, it’s not about the Tigers’ players.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But, if I may address the esteemed committee, if you have 1 ounce of decency, if you have one iota of compassion left in your thought process, please — we beg of you, we beseech you — kill this LSU season, now, before it allows one more uncontested dunk or layup.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Do it purely on humanitarian grounds — LSU basketball fans have suffered enough.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They’re never to be confused with rabid LSU football fans, mind you, but this year they drank the Kool-Aid that one dynamic player, Ben Simmons, could make the sport fun again.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They wanted to care about basketball. They packed the arena. They wanted to like this team.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They made excuses for early struggles, wrote it off to youth, learned patience while waiting for it to come together, then were teased time and time again that maybe it had turned the corner.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In truth, it’s just not and never was a very good basketball TEAM.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Let it go — spare it the NIT.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">This isn’t just about Saturday’s SEC semifinal game — Texas A&amp;M 71, LSU 38 or some such silliness.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If it was just about that game, LSU would be dropping basketball today, forgetting all about the entire sport.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But, just to recap the final straw anyway:</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It left professional talkers — the game’s television announcers — speechless, basically at a total loss for words to describe it, which is no small chore given their upbringing.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">These are highly trained professionals.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">At halftime even effervescent chatterbox Dick Vitale, who normally can find sun beams in a tornado vortex, said that LSU “had no energy, no fight … It was EMBARRASSING!!!!”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And that was at halftime, when the Aggies, after a merciful sluggish start themselves, had closed on a tidy little 32-5 run to end the half.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Oh, yes, it got worse.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The Tigers, to their credit, closed with a furious rally — two buckets in the game’s final minute — to keep the Aggies (reserves) from doubling up the score, but it couldn’t spare LSU from scoring the fewest points by any major college basketball team in a game this season (Boston College’s 40 is now off the hook).</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Keep in mind, this is a team with no visible defense, so it has to score a lot of points.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In the first half, LSU turned it over on 11 of 32 possessions — meaning the Tigers had a much higher turnover rate (34 percent) than their 5-of-24 shooting percentage (20.8 percent).</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And that was the hot half — in the second half LSU shot 20.5 percent.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It wasn’t just that the Tigers once went 14:35 without a basket — they went long stretches without hitting the rim; grazing the backboard seemed to be a moral victory.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Very disappointing for us to pick the day to have a bad shooting day,” LSU head coach Johnny Jones said.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Please, committee, do not listen to him. Don’t fall for it.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The bad shooting was just the result of a more disturbing symptom that’s been there all along.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">I know what you’re thinking. You’re salivating that it would be nice for an off-Broadway production like your NIT to get a superstar like Ben Simmons to go to the Big Apple and Madison Square Garden.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You still have to win a few games to get there, right?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Don’t bet on it.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The NCAA would loved to have had Simmons, too. Couldn’t crunch the numbers.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The SEC tournament did its part. Gave the Tigers a double-bye for a shot at the automatic bid.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">OK, they earned the byes.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Which makes a must-win Saturday all the more puzzling.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Did you see the LSU body language? A shot at the NCAA couldn’t snap them out of it, couldn’t get them to play with any sense of urgency.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Do you really think the NIT might get their attention?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Their tournament hopes were on the line Saturday and they came out slump-shouldered, hang-jawed, droopy-eyed, seemingly disinterested in the nuisance of the whole affair.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Yet at halftime — trailing 35-13 — Jones said he liked his team’s energy. Jones isn’t normally such a comedian.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Or maybe that’s the best you can expect. Imagine when it’s a meaningless tournament.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But go ahead. Try to pave the way for Simmons (and LSU) to get to New York for your little shindig.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Just good luck with any home NIT game for LSU and selling any tickets that weren’t paid for before the season began.</span>

<span class="R~sep~AZaphdingbatdot7pt">l</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">Scooter Hobbs</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">covers LSU</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">athletics. Email him at</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">shobbs@americanpress.com</span><p>LSU players</p>John Bazemore