Will Wade was probably getting a free pass on his first LSU basketball season anyway.
Given the recent history, anything over a .500 record was going to look like a miracle.
Nobody had any illusions about an NCAA Tournament bid. The NIT seemed about as much as could be hoped for, and the Tigers did manage to win a game in that consolation tournament.
So it’s hard to hold the ending against Wade. It only counted as one loss so his shakedown cruise ended at 18-15.
But, gosh, Tigers, that last game was some kind of double ugly.
It was late Monday and Wade probably hopes a good portion of the state was sleeping by the time Utah was finished naming its second-round NIT score, which turned out to be a charitable 95-71 Utes victory.
It could have been far worse. It was far worse for most of the game, which was already 17-7 by the time ESPNU cameras showed up on the scene and Utah was up to 30-11 10 minutes in. LSU put on a furious rally late in the first half to cut it to 17 points without duping anyone into thinking the second half would be different. So the Utes’ margin capped out at 30 points on several occasions until they got gracious or disinterested or both.
Maybe they were just trying to get LSU out of their arena before the Tigers totally stunk it up … or knocked it down.
Patrons around LSU’s goal should have been issued helmets. In the carnage, LSU bricks were falling here and there and to and fro while thoroughly littering up the place.
The area behind the LSU goal looked like the aftermath of a stadium implosion.
And the Tigers’ offense — they did connect on some dunks — might have been the most efficient area of their game, even with no off-ball movement and seemingly no clue what Utah’s matchup-zone defense was doing.
They were really helpless on defense.
At one point the Utes were shooting 78 percent, although they cooled off (or took mercy) to finish the game at 58 percent, which included, by my count, about 50 3-pointers.
Maybe you kept wondering what in the world was Utah doing in the NIT and not in the NCAA Tournament.
Then you noticed that LSU looked nothing like the Tigers that Wade coached up to some true high points during the regular season.
Instead, they were dead-legged and confused, slow and mostly lost in a Salt Lake City fog.
It’s pretty obvious that Wade has put in a foundation for what should be far brighter days ahead for this program.
Bitter endings don’t tend to dominate the season like in football or, at LSU, even baseball.
Better to remember that the Tigers went 3-1 in games against teams they played that made the NCAA Sweet 16.
Better to remember the NIT for the postgame theatrics and the delightful disregard for sportsmanship in the aftermath of beating Louisiana-Lafayette in the first round.
And give Wade credit for one thing: he has certainly embraced LSU history and its basketball tradition.
He must have studied up on it. In many ways, Monday night looked quite familiar to basketball Tigers.
LSU is probably in the upper middle of the pack when it comes to basketball tradition.
There have certainly been enough highlights, even four trips to the Final Four.
When Dale Brown was around, there would also be a subplot to go with it, often a sideshow. Nobody could take a merely improbable situation and spin it into a yarn of Defying the Impossible — his Damnable Odds of March, I used to call them — like Daddy Dale could.
LSU’s basketball postseason runs often were uplifting, filled with upsets and inspiration and the like. Lessons for us all.
But history also tells us that when the Tigers decide to check out of a tournament, you’d better give them a wide berth.
When the end comes, it’s not going to be pretty and there could be collateral damage.
I mentioned the four Final Fours, right?
No mention of any Final Twos. LSU’s best seasons always ended there, never came close. The margins in the national semifinals were 11, 13, 18 and 24.
In fact, in 21 NCAA Tournament appearances, in the games that got LSU sent home, 13 were double-digit losses and four were more than 20 points.
Not much different in the NIT, where Monday’s stinker was the fifth time in seven trips LSU was eliminated by double digits, the third by 20 or more.
But better luck next time, Wade. You were just following an old family tradition.
Scooter Hobbs covers LSU
athletics. Email him at
shobbs@americanpress.com
