Matt McMahon explains his technical foul against Kansas State

LSU lost to Kansas State on Saturday, giving the Tigers their fourth loss of the season. During the loss, LSU head coach Matt McMahon got hit with a technical foul.

As McMahon explained after the game, his major issue was with some of the traveling calls being made but he didn’t think it was a big deal.

“No complaint,” Matt McMahon said. “I just thought there were some tough travel calls there, one way or the other. It is what it is.”

Now in his second season at LSU, this was the first technical foul that McMahon has been given while with the Tigers. However, if he was hoping that getting fired up with the officials would also light a fire under his team, that didn’t quite happen. LSU still lost to Kansas State by 15 points.

One of the major issues for LSU in the loss to Kansas State was rebounding. On both the offensive and defensive glass, the Tigers were out-rebounded. In total, the Wildcats had 39 rebounds to only 26 snagged by the Tigers. Add in that Kansas State shot for a higher percentage than LSU and it was always a recipe for disaster for LSU in this game.

While at Murray State, Matt McMahon built one of the best mid-major programs. Now, he’s trying to rebuild LSU into one of the SEC’s powers. However, after a rough 2022-23 season, the Tigers are only off to a 5-4 start this season. Having not played a conference game yet, that’s only 13th in the SEC.

Jalen Cook’s status is ‘out of our hands,’ per Matt McMahon

LSU has been without Jalen Cook, a transfer to the program who had his eligibility waiver denied by the NCAA. When that denial happened, Matt McMahon admitted that his status was no longer in LSU’s control.

“[We] don’t have a timeframe,” McMahon said.

“That’s out of our hands with the NCAA appeal. He’s doing everything with the team – from weights to player development to film study to practice. Everything except for competition in the games.”

Prior to coming to LSU, Jalen Cook spent two seasons at Tulane. Prior to that, he was with LSU under head coach Will Wade. That era of LSU basketball ended in a scandal and led to Cook moving on. There was hope that given he was returning to a previous school, he’d be given a waiver to play immediately without sitting out. However, with the NCAA cracking down on multiple undergraduate transfers, that wasn’t the case.