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My wife and I attended LSU’s final home basketball game recently in Baton Rouge. For the Tigers, it was Senior Day against #14-ranked Texas A&M.
For much of the first half of that game, the two not-quite 6′ point guards for LSU (Jordan Sears) and Texas A&M (Wade Taylor IV) carried their teams and scored in double digits. The home underdog Tigers (a woeful 3-15 in SEC play) seemed a bit inspired in taking a 32-30 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Then the second half began
The LSU men’s basketball team could not hit the proverbial side of a barn. The Tigers scored just seven points in the first 13 minutes of the second half.
It was U-G-L-Y.
LSU’s offense (which looked disorganized and inept for much of the game) stunk-up the Pete Maravich Assembly Center like Pepe Le Pew in the second half of a winnable basketball game.
For the game, LSU connected on just 15 of 50 shots from the field (30%). They were out-rebounded 40-27 by Texas A&M. The Tigers committed a whopping 24 fouls in the game, too.
Texas A&M was gifted a 66-52 road win.
Watching this game in person, LSU did not appear to run very many offensive plays. Rarely did the Tigers pass the ball more than one time during most offensive possessions.
A lunchtime pick-up game at your local YMCA may feature more cohesive players than this year’s LSU Tigers men’s basketball team.
The Bayou Bengals were quickly vanquished from the SEC tournament
The following week, LSU was clobbered by Mississippi State 91-62 in the opening round of the SEC basketball tournament. LSU trailed by 20 points at the half as yet another game was virtually over in the opening minutes.
The Bayou Bengal Bricklayers converted just 5 of 26 3-point shots (19%) and 13 of 26 free throws (50%).
Mercifully, the LSU men’s basketball team ended the season with a deceivingly moderate record of 14-18. That’s because the Tigers feasted on a series of early season cupcakes to pad their record.
LSU finished next-to-last in the 16-team SEC this season with a pitiful 3-15 league record.
Is it time to fire the coach?
In three seasons under men’s basketball head coach Matt McMahon, the LSU men’s basketball team has a record of 45-47.
Coach McMahon signed a 7-year contract back in 2022. He is the successor to current McNeese State head coach Will Wade (whose #12 seed Cowboys just won their first round NCAA March Madness tournament game over #5 seed Clemson).
Will Wade (expected to be named the new head coach at North Carolina State University soon) was fired as LSU’s head coach in March, 2022.
An audio tape confirmed that he offered significant financial incentives to at least one prospective LSU basketball player.
Those potential NCAA violations happened just prior to advent of today’s flimsy NIL guidelines allowing college athletes to receive compensation.
After Will Wade was fired, his replacement (Matt McMahon from Murray State in Kentucky) signed a contract worth $2.6 million in year #1 with guaranteed raises of $100,000 per year.
In a very savvy contract negotiation by the coach’s agent, LSU is required to pay Matt McMahon $7.5 million in severance pay if he is terminated prior to the start of next season.
Ouch.
LSU women’s basketball is much more successful – on the court and financially
LSU men’s basketball averaged 7,900 fans per home game during this 2024/2025 season.
By contrast, Coach Kim Mulkey’s 28-5 LSU women’s basketball team drew 10,700 per game this season into the 12,500 seat Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The AP #10 LSU women’s basketball team won the NCAA title two years ago and carries a #3 regional seed into the women’s March Madness tournament.
After a recent renegotiation, Kim Mulkey earns $3.2 million per year at LSU. If either party should terminates Mulkey’s contract early, the other party will be owed $2 million.
Nice, neat, reasonable, and very easy to understand.
Let’s crank the numbers as to whether LSU should find a new men’s basketball coach
The LSU men’s basketball team had 21 home games this season. At an average price of (let’s say) $25 per ticket sold, the team produced estimated ticket revenues of $197,500/game. With 21 home games, that’s about $4.15 million.
Let’s add another $5 per person for net profits on concessions, etc. to put another $1 million in revenue in the Tigers’ kitty (get it?).
That brings the total net revenue for the LSU men’s team (this year) to about $5 million.
By contrast, the LSU women’s team (using the same number of home games, ticket prices and concession profit margins) would have generated more than $5.6 million in ticket sales plus $1.2 million in concessions revenue.
That’s almost $7 million per year in revenue produced by the LSU women’s basketball team this past season.
Firing the LSU men’s basketball coach today does not make math sense
If Matt McMahon was fired and received a whopping $7.5 million in severance money, it would take several years for LSU to recoup that incremental expense.
Earlier, we estimated that LSU’s women’s program generated about $2 million more in revenues this season than the men’s team likely did.
If a new men’s basketball coach could revive fan interest and raise attendance levels to those of the LSU women’s basketball team, it would still take 3.75 years (the $7.5 million contract buyout cost divided by the $2 million of incremental revenue generated per season) to reach that breakeven point.
Oops! We almost forgot that hiring a top college basketball coach away from another school will require a significant cash buyout for that coach to leave.
That will cost a few million dollars, too.
The annual cost for a national top 25 men’s coach appears to be running from $3.5 million (like Rick Pitino at St. John’s) to over $5 million (Bruce Pearl at Auburn).
My estimate is that it would take at least 5 years for LSU men’s basketball to recover the costs of firing the current coach and replacing him with a higher profile “name” coach.
That still doesn’t guarantee that LSU fans will flock to the PMAC to watch the men’s team play.
Sadly, LSU’s men’s basketball has a long history of mediocrity
I grew up as a big fan of LSU’s Pistol Pete Maravich (circa 1970).
In the early 1990’s, I loved watching Shaquille O’Neal dominate the middle during his college days at LSU, too.
Though Pete and Shaq filled the arena in Baton Rouge, neither of those two future NBA legends was able to carry LSU anywhere close to a national championship in men’s basketball.
In fact, LSU has NEVER won an NCAA men’s basketball title.
The men’s team has only advanced to the March Madness Final Four on four occasions since World War II (1953, 1981, 1986, and 2006).
Compare that to the Tigers’ four national championship football teams (1958, 2003, 2007, and 2019) and seven national titles for the baseball team (1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2009, and 2015) during the same period.
Sports fans in Baton Rouge have proven that they will show-up for men’s basketball only if the team is (a) highly entertaining and/or (b) highly successful.
Legendary guard Pete Maravich drew so many fans to the school’s ancient (circa 1937) John Parker Ag Center (aptly nicknamed “The Barn”) that LSU finally constructed a new arena after Pete left for the NBA.
The current basketball arena completed in 1972 is quite literally “The House that Pete Built.”
Though Coach Dale Brown’s teams of the 1980’s and 1990’s were generally successful, it took a 7’1” dynamo named Shaquille O’Neal to regularly “pack the PMAC.”
Does LSU and its fan base really care about having a top men’s basketball program?
LSU has a highly successful women’s basketball team which continues to build on its growing season ticket base in Baton Rouge.
Now completing her fourth year at LSU, Coach Kim Mulkey’s teams are a sterling 119-19 (86.2%) and hoisted the school’s first national championship banner in basketball two years ago in 2023.
Coach Kim Mulkey is a master recruiter and finds top players for her program within the state of Louisiana and nationally.
Mulkey’s fan-friendly players also make time after LSU home games to sign autographs for legions of young fans in attendance.
LSU women’s coach Kim Mulkey is also a big part of the “show”.
Her unique fashion statements and animated coaching exhortations along the sidelines are entertaining.
Those little things really add up – but you must also have a winning program.
In the end, it all comes down to money
One final factor in running a successful college basketball program today involves raising additional cash to obtain better players, too.
As you watch the March Madness tournaments (men and women), take note of how many basketball players are transfers from other schools.
It’s a safe bet that the vast majority of those transfers are not coming to their new school seeking a better education.
With today’s growing NIL pot-of-gold, some colleges are doling out significant bucks to attract top players to transfer into their programs.
It wasn’t just improved coaching which has propelled men’s basketball teams like McNeese State and St. John’s into the second round of this year’s NCAA March Madness tournament.
The LSU athletics department balance sheet has always been one of the largest in the nation. The Tigers have produced highly successful results in most major sports endeavors.
Except for men’s basketball.
As long as there remains a collective yawn from fans about the men’s basketball program in Baton Rouge, expect Coach Matt McMahon to remain the head coach for at least one more season.
The accounting term “sunk cost” comes to mind
LSU’s recent investment to obtain the current men’s basketball coach was quite significant.
In hindsight, spending millions of dollars to make a coaching change in 2022 may have been an imprudent business decision. When you roll the dice on an expensive new coach, sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t.
There is a no guarantee that making another large financial outlay to sign a new basketball coach today will result in a significantly improved economic picture for the Bayou Bengals’ men’s hoops team.
The decision makers within the LSU athletics department have proven to be quite sharp. They are quite aware that the men’s basketball program in Baton Rouge just may not be worth the risk and added expense of making a change.
Yet.