LSU 75, Arkansas 69.
LSU 75, Auburn 58.
   Either 75 is the LSU basketball team’s lucky number or it must have snowed in Baton Rouge. (Oh yeah, it did.)
Two Southeastern Conference wins in only four conference games. In case you haven’t been keeping up, we LSU followers haven’t seen that kind of start since the Dale Brown era of LSU basketball and the 1995-96 season.
Not even in the 99-00 season did LSU get off to a better start in league play. Those Tigers limped out of the gates at 1-3 with losses to Tennessee, Florida and Vanderbilt. Those Tigers were the eventual champions of the SEC and Sweet 16 participants.
So, everything seems great and wonderful for John Brady and his Tigers. And for all realistic purposes, it is considering what this program has gone through in the last decade.
A program left in turmoil after Brown’s departure. Scandals. Scholarship restrictions. No bench. Basketball season was merely a nice break between football season and baseball season.
But Brady has attempted to change things around here, and he seems to be doing a respectable job at doing just that.
The scholarship restrictions are slowly disappearing, and the program under Brady seems to have the potential to return to its glory days.
But there’s still a ways to go, and that was never so evident than in LSU’s lackluster performance at Florida last week (a 32-point loss).
This team has to start winning on the road and not just in the friendly confines of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center where the Tigers have won eleven straight games (in front of sparse crowds, but we’ll save that issue for later).
And LSU can do just that this week with key road games at Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
Two victories could do a lot for this team and this program.
Two losses could be devastating to coach Brady’s pleas for a contract extension.
Also, FYI … In case you haven’t been keeping up, those graceful Dale Brown Tigers of 95-96 finished the season 12-17 overall and 4-12 in SEC play. So don’t go getting your hopes up just yet.