Even after an 8-5 season that featured a blowout road loss to Auburn, a loss to Alabama for the fourth time in a row, a shutout loss to Arkansas and a bowl loss against Notre Dame, LSU football will always reign supreme in Baton Rouge.
Even after failing to reach a Super Regional when it was the No. 8 overall seed entering the postseason in 2014, Tiger fans will crowd Alex Box Stadium to watch the LSU baseball team open up its season against Kansas on Feb. 13.
But with a 15-4 overall record and a 4-2 mark in league play, which is tied for second in the Southeastern Conference, LSU basketball still falls behind in popularity to its Tiger counterparts.
For the Tigers on the hardwood, the margin of error is very small.
“I definitely knew it was a football school with all the TV events and everything that gets publicized about them,” said sophomore guard Tim Quarterman. “[The football team] deserves it with all the players that they have and the previous years’ players … Baseball [deserves it] as well.”
Low expectations are only natural for the LSU basketball program, which hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament in six years and achieved it only four other times since 2000. Inconsistency has plagued LSU, and the days of former coach Dale Brown leading the Tigers to 13 NCAA Tournaments and two Final Four appearances from 1978-1993 are a distant memory for fans.
While Brown’s success in Baton Rouge is unmatched, LSU basketball seemed to be on an uptick when former coach John Brady, with help from former Tigers Darrel Mitchell, Tyrus Thomas and Glen Davis, led the Tigers to the Final Four in 2006. But with the departures of a graduated Mitchell and a draft-bound Thomas, the 2006-07 season became one of the most disappointing in recent memory.
LSU was ranked as high as No. 5 that year, but it finished 17-15 with a 5-11 conference record. A season later, Brady was fired 21 games into the season after an 8-13 start. Even with
the 2009 trip to the NCAA Tournament under Trent Johnson with mostly players Brady recruited, LSU suffered consecutive losing seasons in 2010 and 2011 before Johnson resigned in 2012.
Junior guard Keith Hornsby, who played in the NCAA Tournament his freshman year at UNC-Asheville, said he recognizes how passionate fans are in Baton Rouge but knows results on the floor will make the difference in support.
“[Transferring] was a big risk I was willing to take, and it has certainly paid off,” Hornsby said. “I’ve definitely been pleasantly surprised about the fans. I’m also surprised how quick they are to doubt, but I think that’s a lot of places, though.
“They’re kind of used to us not being [good]. They have such high expectations. If we are even OK, then they’re not as excited. They really want us to do well, so when we haven’t been in some of the past years, they’ve been that much more disappointed.”
Although LSU has protected its home court, going 9-1 at the PMAC thus far, the Tigers’ held their largest attendance, 10,278, in a three-point loss to Texas A&M on Jan. 17. While the Tigers led by as many as 13 in the second half of that game, fans left the PMAC with unsettling thoughts about the Tigers’ tournament hopes being fools’ gold.
But sophomore forward Jarell Martin has made a point to change the culture in Baton Rouge.
“That was one of my goals coming in here,” Martin said. “I definitely wanted to bring the tradition here and legacy back up at LSU. I wanted to come back in and make this a basketball state.”
Much of that starts with being effective in a conference that hasn’t been considered top tier over the past few seasons. The Tigers have been .500 in the SEC in both years under current LSU coach Johnny Jones.
Despite Tennessee reaching the Sweet Sixteen, Florida reaching the Final Four and Kentucky reaching the championship game, those three were the only teams from conference to reach the tournament last season. The same number made it in Jones’ first year with LSU.
The conference, though, may be improving as whole. Seven teams from the SEC, including LSU, are ranked in the top 50 of Monday’s Ratings Percentage Index, and ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has four teams making the tournament in his latest bracketology standings. Two other teams from the conference are in Lunardi’s “First Four Out.”
“When you look at [No. 1] Kentucky and the first couple of games out of the gate, they go in double-overtime at Texas A&M and then overtime at home against Ole Miss,” Jones said. “When you talk about the parity and how close games have been and how competitive games have been night in and night out … even if they are near the bottom of the league, how they’ve challenged teams playing on someone else’s home floor, it’s tough.”
Jones has engineered two winning seasons during his time in Baton Rouge and reached the second round of the National Invitational Tournament last season. He has NCAA Tournament experience, reaching the tournament in 2007 and 2010 with North Texas, but both those appearances were earned via automatic bids for winning the Sun Belt Conference Tournament.
But Quarterman said Jones has been the difference in where this program is headed.
“By the caliber of players he recruits and the players he has got to commit here, you could just tell the program is going up,” Quarterman said. “A lot of recruits are coming out of high school see that and want to be a part of it because of the type of schools they are turning down to come here. It says a lot.”
With four of the next five games being played in the PMAC, Jones understands that now is the opportunity to change the perception of the program.
“Our guys take a great deal of pride in making sure that we do a great job for our fans and our fan base because we know how important it is to them and [us] wanting them to feel good,” Jones said. “With this window of opportunity, it’s a chance for us to get a lot wins in the process.”
You can reach James Bewers on Twitter @JamesBewers_TDR.