Considering LSU has lost nine of its last 12 men’s basketball games against Alabama, there doesn’t seem an advantageous time to face the Crimson Tide.
But for coach Will Wade’s No. 13 ranked team, Wednesday’s 6 p.m. matchup at Alabama couldn’t have come at a tougher time.
The Tigers (15-2, 3-2 SEC) are coming off their worst performance and first home loss of the season, a 65-58 implosion vs. Arkansas in which LSU was outrebounded by 10, committed 16 turnovers for a third straight game and missed six free throws.
The Crimson Tide (11-6, 2-3) are on an uncharacteristic three-game losing streak (by a combined 12 points), a stunner considering they won consecutive December non-conference games over then-No. 3 Gonzaga (which is now again ranked No. 1) and then-No. 18 Houston.
Finally, LSU has lost on 17 of its last 20 trips to Tuscaloosa.
Not very good past and present vibes for the Tigers, wouldn’t you say?
“They’re going to be desperate, they’re going to play as well as they have all year, I have no doubt about that, ” Wade said of Alabama. “It’s like you’d like to have a little bit of runway going into the game by beating Arkansas. That would have been the prudent thing to do.”
Especially when LSU’s date in Tuscaloosa will be followed by another road battle, this one at Tennessee on Saturday where the Vols are eager to avenge their 79-67 Jan. 8 loss in Baton Rouge.
Wade knew the SEC office did him no favors with six of LSU’s first seven league games scheduled against the five teams in the preseason media voting picked to finish ahead of the Tigers in conference play.
Yet LSU, with a mix of two transfers, three returnees and three freshmen in its eight-man rotation, seemed to have momentum after beating then-No. 16 Kentucky and then-No. 18 Tennessee in a five-day span before winning last Wednesday at Florida.
Maybe it was the loss of starting senior transfer point guard Xavier Pinson with a sprained knee late in the Florida game, but LSU hasn’t been the same since he has missed the last two games. There’s an outside chance he could see some minutes at Alabama.
“I thought we’d lose at Florida because our preparation was poor,” Wade said. “I saw a bunch of things I wanted to fix, but they (his players) were so happy in the locker room. I never want to take the fun out of winning, it was our first SEC road win.
“The problem was on Thursday I couldn’t get through to them in the film session. I was showing them stuff I wasn’t real happy about. (They said) `Coach, we won, we pulled it out.’ Yeah, but we’re not going to keep pulling out games like that. I did a poor job communicating what I needed to communicate.”
The loss to Arkansas spoke volumes. While it again showed LSU is among the nation’s elite defenses, still ranked first in field goal percentage defense (35.4 percent), fifth in scoring defense (57 points allowed per game) and first in steals (207), it spotlighted the Tigers’ sputtering offense.
In SEC games only, LSU is 12th in the 14-team league in scoring (64.2 ppg), 12th in field goal percentage (40.9), 12th in free throw shooting 62.2 percent), 14th in assists (10 per game) and assist-to-turnover ratio (0.63) and 11th in defensive rebound percentage (67.9, 125 defensive rebounds by LSU, 59 offensive rebounds by an opponent).
All those linked together spell out the totality of the Tigers’ offensive failures.
They aren’t getting enough defensive rebounds to increase fast break opportunities. Then in their halfcourt offense, there is little or no ball and player movement. With the shot clock running down, they force shots with one-on-one basketball using screens or commit turnovers trying to drive inside.
“We’re just like a one-legged duck moving in the same spot over and over,” Wade said. “It’s been a problem for us all year, it’s just now catching up to us playing the best teams on schedule.”
Meanwhile, Alabama has no offensive trouble, averaging 79 points per game in SEC games.
The Crimson Tide trio of Jaden Shackelford (16. 2ppg), Jahvon Quinerly (14.8 ppg) and Keon Ellis (12.2 ppg) combine to account for 53 percent of Alabama’s scoring, 69 percent of the team’s 3-pointers made (109 of 159), 52 percent of the team’s field goals made (252 of 495) and just under 50 percent of the team’s free throws made (120 of 241).
But Alabama, like LSU, has struggled in rebounding. Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats sounded just like LSU’s Wade addressing his team’s lack of toughness.
“We've got to show some toughness about us," Oats told the Tuscaloosa News. "We've got to do it for 40 minutes. We can't do it for 32.
“I thought we had a team that could compete for a league title, and we’re just not quite as tough as we need to be to compete for a league title at this point. Maybe they’ll figure it out. Maybe it will come. But we’ve got to get tougher moving forward."
