SLANT-N-GO: Overloaded LSU Bandwagon Deflates Tigers

Originally appeared in April 3, 2006 edition of the Hammond (La.) Daily Star.


Rapper Mike Jones is noted for the following lyric: “Back then, they didn’t want me. Now I’m hot, they’re all on me.”
The same applied to LSU’s men’s basketball team and coach John Brady before the Tigers’ run to the Final Four ended abruptly at the hands of UCLA.
The road to Indianapolis was long for the Tigers’ basketball program, both figuratively and literally — much longer than the 847 miles it takes to go from Baton Rouge to ‘Nap Town’.
The only thing is, they took a lot more people on the bus than they expected. The LSU bandwagon could have filled Tiger Stadium, which sits across the street from and casts a long shadow upon the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Brady’s basketball team has been fourth on the popularity charts on the LSU campus — behind football, baseball and the Seimone Augustus-led Lady Tigers — for a long time now. That’s despite the fact LSU averaged 21 wins a season since 2001-02 and qualified for postseason play each year since the ’01-02 campaign (two postseason NIT bids and three NCAA tourney appearances).
LSU men’s basketball games at the PMAC haven’t exactly been hot tickets, despite the success of the Tigers. Home attendance averaged just over 8,100 in 2001 and officially increased to 9,469 this season, but the arena holds 13,472 in its men’s basketball setup. The team has not cracked Division I’s top 25 in home attendance in any of Brady’s nine years at the helm, only averaging over 10,000 in 1999-2000 — the Tigers’ Sweet 16 year.
Radio shows and newspapers have criticized Brady and the team constantly over the years, and the players heard it all.
Glen “Big Baby” Davis wanted to ask reporters about the criticism hurled at the team after their Final Four-clinching win over Texas, but he did not get the chance. Tyrus Thomas said he felt they were still the underdog and the media and fans heaped praised upon them solely because the Tigers are one of only four teams left with a shot at the national championship.
They went from SEC regular season champs to tourney dark horse to the biggest thing to hit Louisiana since high-speed Internet access in the matter of weeks. The Tigers were been tabbed as ambassadors of post Katrina/Rita Louisiana, Davis became a less-threatening version of young Charles Barkley with his gift of gab and play on the court, and the trampoline-legged Thomas’ name has been splattered across various NBA draftnik Web sites as a potential lottery pick.
They went from afterthought to having Gov. Kathleen Blanco declaring Friday “Purple-and-Gold Day” and visiting them on the campus. Blanco, along with other head honchos and new-found Tiger fans, took the trip to the RCA Dome and cheered on the Tigers.
In lame teen movie terminology, LSU went from the geeky girl that sat alone for lunch to the prom queen everybody wanted to either date or be friends with. Just like those teen movies and their contrived plots, the Tigers turned themselves from geek to chic, much the surprised delight of most but to the Tigers’ own chagrin.
No wonder Brady closed practices to the public before the team left for Indianapolis. All the new-found popularity was enough for a no-frills guy like Brady to break out into hives and heebie-jeebies. A coach like Brady — who took the job in 1997 in the wake of “Lester Earl-gate” and NCAA sanctions — and a team like the defensive-minded Tigers did not need the kudos.
The extra passengers and their baggage on the bandwagon slowed the Tigers down — as evidenced Saturday night.
Turning them into the favorite, like prognosticators and fans done in days leading into the game, seemed to take their edge away and shrunk that once-huge chip on their shoulders. Maybe all the hoopla started to get to the young Tigers and they started to drink the Kool-Aid.
Ultimately, the weight of the bandwagon was too much for the team to bear. Like Icarus getting his waxed wings too close to the sun, the Tigers came down crashing from their hoops euphoria. The moral of the story: check the capacity limit sign at the front of the bandwagon before jumping on.