Battered Tigers hope to grab a win at Vanderbilt

There’s the Tigers’ 15-1 sprint out the gate including 3-1 in the SEC with back-to-back wins over Kentucky and Tennessee. It was the best start in Will Wade’s five seasons as LSU's head coach.

“When we're healthy and rolling, our team's been pretty good," Wade said.

Since then, after a litany of injuries, LSU has lost five of its last six games including 1-4 in league play which is Wade’s worst tailspin of his Tigers’ career.

First, it was starting point guard Xavier Pinson with a sprained knee. Then, it was starting forward Darius Days with an ankle he has sprained twice.

Add on new starting point guard Eric Gaines playing with a wrist injury, starting shooting guard Brandon Murray who can barely catch a ball because of an injured thumb and backup guard Justice Williams who receives an injection before every game for a toe injury.

“Our rotations have been off with our injuries, it's been a lot herky jerky,” said Wade, who also lost highly touted transfer Adam Miller for the entire season with torn ACL sustained in preseason practice.

The 25th ranked Tigers, 16-6 overall and 4-5 in the SEC, have nine remaining regular season conference games to stop the bleeding, starting with Saturday’s 5 p.m. road trip to Vanderbilt (11-10, 3-6 SEC) where Nashville native Wade is 0-2 in Memorial Gymnasium.

In fact, the last time Vanderbilt beat a ranked team was two seasons ago when the then-18th ranked Tigers, off to an 8-0 start in SEC play, lost 99-90 in Nashville to the Commodores who had then yet to record a league win.

LSU, which started this season unranked, climbed to as high as No. 10 in the Coaches poll and No. 12 in the AP before Pinson’s injury late in the Tigers’ 79-67 home win over Tennessee on Jan. 8 began edging Wade’s team toward survival mode.

The Tigers’ success had been built on a defense that ranked as the nation’s best in scoring average allowed and field goal percentage defense.

That has dramatically slipped in the last two games with LSU allowing its two highest point totals of the season in losses of 77-68 at TCU last Saturday in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge and 76-72 to 13½-point underdog Ole Miss Tuesday night in Baton Rouge.

The growing list of injuries have dramatically altered LSU’s practice plans. After the TCU loss, the Tigers were so beat-up they didn’t practice again until the day of the Ole Miss game.

And following Tuesday’s loss to Ole Miss, LSU’s Thursday’s practice was switched to a yoga session because there were too many walking wounded players.

“I’ve never been able to practice this little,” Wade said. “That’s part of the reason our defense has slipped. Our (defensive) switching has slipped. Just everything, it’s all been part of it.

“We’ve got to have seven or eight guys we can play every night. If we didn’t practice like this, we might not be able to put seven or eight scholarship guys on the court.”

Pinson missed five games before returning against TCU wearing a knee brace. His playing time was limited – he played seven minutes – before starting vs. Ole Miss and playing just more than 13 minutes when Wade sat him down for the night.

There’s a strong possibility Pinson may not play at all at Vanderbilt. Wade said Pinson has been playing at 70 percent and needs to be closer to 85 to 90 percent to be effective.

Pinson’s knee injury has negated his one-on-one explosiveness, vital to him penetrating defenses and creating open shots for teammates.

“He’s not doing himself or our team any favors going out there like he’s been,” Wade said of Pinson. “I appreciate the hell out of him trying and wanting to be out there and be a part of it, but we’ve got to do what’s right by him and what’s right by our team.”

Days, a fourth-year senior, is doing his best to get his team back on track. Playing through the pain of his ankle injury which forced him to miss LSU’s gritty 70-64 home win over Texas A&M on Jan. 26, he returned and has recorded two consecutive double-doubles including 21 points and 13 rebounds in the loss to Ole Miss.

“It’s been very tough, but we’ll stay together,” Days said. “One of our mottos is to keep working hard. Some of the guys are banged up, but that shouldn’t be an excuse.”

As always with this season's Tigers, their chances of winning at Vanderbilt are based on reducing their fouls and turnovers while raising their shooting percentage.

In SEC games only, LSU is first in the league in fouls committed (22 per game) and first in turnovers committed (16.44) and 13th in field goal percentage (41.3 percent).

The Tigers remain the only team in the SEC that has been whistled for 20 or more fouls in all of their conference games. LSU leads the league with six players fouling out 11 times, led by leading scorer Tari Eason fouling three times.

It appears LSU will face a fouling challenge against Vanderbilt. Commodores’ guard Scottie Pippen Jr., son of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame namesake. Pippen Jr., the SEC’s leading scorer, leads the league in free throw attempts per game at 14.2 (compared to LSU’s 18.9 as a team).

"I hate to tell you, Pippen at Vanderbilt is fifth in the country in fouls drawn," Wade said, answering a question from the audience at his Will Wade Unfiltered luncheon appearance Thursday at Walk-Ons. “So if you don't like what you've seen, wait until Saturday. Vanderbilt gets fouled on 38% of their possessions on offense, so like four-out-of-10 of their possessions end in a foul. If you don't like what you've seen just wait 'til Saturday, you ain't seen nothing yet."

Vanderbilt is coming off Wednesday’s 77-70 loss at No. 5 Kentucky. Pippen Jr. scored 33 points.

“When we share the ball, we can play with anybody,” said Vanderbilt coach Jerry Stackhouse, whose team is one win away from its most wins since the 2017-18 season. “We can do some good things.”

The TV telecast will be on the SEC Network with the broadcast team of Roy Philpott and Mark Wise. Chris Blair and John Brady will call the action on affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network. Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge is the network flagship.