The madness is over for the Lady Tigers.The LSU women’s basketball team’s roller coaster season ended yesterday with a loss to No. 2-seeded Duke. But this game seemed to sum up the Lady Tigers’ season as Duke was able to exploit the weaknesses the Lady Tigers have shown in other close games this season.LSU was unable to win close games this season. Nine of the Lady Tigers’ 10 losses were in games decided by fewer than 10 points.The inability to win a close game cost LSU its season, and the Lady Tigers simply couldn’t pull away from the Blue Devils. But anyone who saw LSU fall to Duke should be able to see why they couldn’t. The three reasons all deal with composure.The first thing is the Lady Tigers’ inability to beat a zone defense.It seemed like LSU began to struggle when Duke switched from man-to-man to a zone defense.”They played us man, and I wanted to start down there and tell Joanne [McCallie] to stay in the man,” LSU coach Van Chancellor said after the NCAA tournament loss. “Because when we were in man, we were running a little play we have, and we were running our motion post exchange and [senior guard Allison] Hightower was getting one shot after the other. When they went to that 1-2-2, zone, they’re so big in it, it makes it look like they have six players out there. That’s hard to get in the gaps of it. When we got in the gaps of it, we turned the ball over.”The zone defense, when played by a quick athletic team, has been LSU’s toughest opponent this season.Tennessee and Kentucky, both Sweet Sixteen teams, disrupted the LSU offense when using a zone defense against them, and the Lady Tigers were 0-3 against those teams this season.This struggle just seemed to boil down to an issue of composure. When the Lady Tigers went against a zone, they made bad passes, took bad shots and seemed to force the issue.LSU’s second biggest weakness this season was: It just couldn’t seem to put a game away. The Lady Tigers could never seem get the key shot or defensive stop they needed to protect a late lead or erase a small deficit. The Duke game was a perfect example.At the end of the game, the Lady Tigers couldn’t keep the Blue Devils out of the paint and were settling for bad shots on the offensive end. It once again boiled down to composure.For example, one of the keys to beating Duke is to keep the Blue Devils off the offensive glass. LSU did a terrific job of denying Duke second-chance points until the closing minutes of the game. Then LSU seemed to be overactive on defense and got out of position, allowing the Blue Devils to snag some offensive rebounds.Depth was the third weakness the Lady Tigers suffered this season.LSU probably had one of the most athletic rosters in the Southeastern Conference, but throughout most of the season it could only count on two players for consistent offensive numbers — Hightower and sophomore forward LaSondra Barrett. LSU junior guard Katherine Graham came on later in the season, but the Lady Tigers for the most part depended on Barrett and Hightower to score.There were players on the LSU roster who had the capability to score but lacked the defensive abilities of some of the Lady Tigers’ regular contributors.Chancellor said after the loss to Duke what his team would need to make it to the Final Four is “one great shooter.””One person who can just out there and stick the ball in anytime from any place,” Chancellor said.He went on to say he believes he’s got that shooter coming in next season — Jeanne Kenney from St. Michael High School in Baton Rouge.Amos Morale is a 22-year-old history senior from Houston. Follow him on Twitter at @TDR_amosmorale3.—-Contact Amos Morale at [email protected].