Matt McMahon explains process of building LSU roster from scratch
LSU is having to start from scratch with Matt McMahon. With Will Wade now out of the program and NCAA violations pending, there has been a complete overhaul in Baton Rouge to begin a new era. There’s a new staff, roster, and mindset around the Tigers.
McMahon talked about this offseason has been different for him compared to last season, saying there has been a lot of team bonding. With everything being brand new for him, his coaches, and players, he wanted to make sure they are gluing together well before tipoff in a couple of months. The building of the roster seemed to be quite the process.
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“We’ve started that process,” McMahon said. “It’s been a little bit of a different year for us and how we want to build our team. I would prefer the summer and fall to be player development driven. A lot of individual workouts and so forth. But with us having 13 new players, new staff, we’ve done a lot more team events this summer and fall to start building the chemistry of the group. To start to installation process of offense, defense, and special teams schemes.”
Of the 13 new players on the LSU roster, just four came from the 2022 recruiting class. The other nine are via the NCAA transfer portal, where McMahon was able to grab some top players. Three followed him over from Murray State as well.
“Players will determine who plays”
Once practice gets underway, McMahon made it clear as to how his rotation is going to be set. It’s going to be an open competition entering the season, saying the “players will determine” who gets significant playing time.
Everybody will have an “equal opportunity” to prove themselves until the Nov. 9 season opener against UMKC.
“Now, as practice starts — ultimately, the players will determine who plays through their production on the court in practice, their ability to impact winning. We’ll have very competitive practices, equal opportunity there. You can come and earn as many minutes as you want and work to really determine your role within the team.”
Matt McMahon looking to run a tight rotation
However, once that open competition is over and everybody’s roles have been decided, McMahon will stick to it. The head coach is not in favor of having a lot of players rack up minutes. He said the best players on the team are going to play, hoping LSU can work toward an NCAA Tournament birth.
“Where I might vary from others is you won’t see us running any platoon systems. Twelve players aren’t going to play. We like to get to that top eight or nine and keep our best players on the floor as much as possible. These next six weeks will be critical in determining who those guys are going to be.”
Practice will begin on Wednesday for the Tigers, with McMahon saying “it’s time to get to work.” The stories of how he and the staff built the roster are fun but the first-year head coach is ready to get basketball underway.
“I know we’ve had all the stories about how we’ve built the roster from zero to 13,” McMahon said. “It was fun doing all of those. Now, it’s time to get to work. We’ve turned the page from that. Our roster for the 22-23 season is what it is and I’m excited about turning into a really good basketball team starting with practice on Wednesday.”