GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
It is a pretty simple plan, but doing it has been the issue for the LSU men’s basketball team, which is facing a possible 0-3 start in Southeastern Conference play.
The Tigers (11-4, 0-2 SEC) play at No. 23 Ole Miss (13-2, 2-0 SEC) on Saturday (5 p.m., SEC Network), and the problem is that the Rebels play much like the two league teams that LSU has lost to – Vanderbilt and at Missouri.
Ole Miss is 32nd in the nation in forcing turnovers with 15.6 a game. Vanderbilt is No. 24 at 15.9, and Missouri is No. 25 at 15.8. LSU couldn’t handle the defensive pressure in either of its last two games early on. It committed 11 of its 15 turnovers in the first half last Saturday to fall behind 34-27 to Vanderbilt, corrected the problem in the second half, but couldn’t quite finish the job and lost 80-72.
The Tigers committed 10 of their 14 turnovers at Missouri in the first half on Tuesday, fell behind 42-27, fixed the issues, cut the lead, but never got back in the game in an 83-67 loss.
MISSOURI FOLLOWS VANDERBILT BLUEPRINT TO BEAT LSU
“Some similar themes,” LSU coach Matt McMahon said on his radio show Wednesday night. “We’ve got to get better at taking care of the basketball in the first half and get off to a good start. It’s a situation we’ve got to get fixed quickly.”
One remedy may be more of freshman point guard Curtis Givens III. Look for him to either start in place of senior starting point guard Jordan Sears, or play more against the Rebels. McMahon has not said that, but he has dropped hints.
“There were some positives,” McMahon said on the radio show of the Missouri loss. “The emergence of Curtis Givens – you see him getting better and better every time out. It was good to see him really scoring the ball.”
Givens scored 15 points off the bench, including 10 in the second half at Missouri.
“I thought it was huge to see Curtis Givens really step up and show some leadership at the point guard position,” McMahon said immediately after the Missouri game. “We’ve been struggling there of late, and I thought he was able to get us into offense.”
Over his last five games, Givens is averaging 9 points and 2.8 assists with just 0.8 turnovers. He has 14 assists over that span to just four turnovers. Sears is averaging 14 points a game, but has 34 turnovers to 35 assists. In his last five games, he has nine turnovers to eight assists.
Sears got into early foul trouble at Missouri and finished with three points on 1-of-3 shooting, two turnovers and zero assists in 10 minutes.
LSU needs better guard play as both Vanderbilt and Missouri denied passing lanes, switched screens and forced turnovers, often confusing Sears. And freshman guard Vyctorius Miller has disappeared in LSU’s two SEC games as he has scored four points on 1-of-4 shooting. In LSU’s last three non-conference games, he scored 16, 17 and 20 points.
“The thing that stands out is the overall physicality of the league, and that’s bothered us,” McMahon said. “Especially in the first half. We’ve got to get that corrected. We need to create advantages with our guards. Some of it’s spacing. Some of it’s decision making. When you get in the lane, we’ve got to be able to look out and get those perimeter-kick threes. We’ve done it some. We’ve got to do it more consistently for 40 minutes.”
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