After a thrilling 86-80 comeback overtime win over Missouri, the Tigers are heading back on the road to take on a Texas A&M team Wednesday that has struggled in league play.
LSU (16-3, 6-0), is one of just four Power Six teams that has remained undefeated in conference play with the other three being Washington, Tennessee and Villanova.
The Aggies (8-10,1-5), despite recent SEC struggles, are coming off their best win of the season with a home defeat of Kansas State in the SEC-Big 12 rivalry series on Saturday. The backcourt of TJ Starks, Savion Flagg and Wendell Mitchell will provide another big test for LSU guards Tremont Waters, Skylar Mays, Marlon Taylor and Javonte Smart.
Averaging a little over 37 points per game between the three of them, coach Will Wade said keying in on Mitchell in particular, who had seven threes against Florida and scored 22 in the second half against Kansas State on Saturday, will be a big test.
“We saw him play against Marlon a couple times in junior college,” Wade said. “He’s a transfer from Baylor so he is a very very good player who’s playing with a lot of confidence so we’re going to need to do a good job on him. As a team, they’re playing a lot more wide open out and set a ton of on-ball screens and try to get Starks and Mitchell to make a play.”
“They have some great guard play, their bigs are active and play hard,” Mays said. “They’re much better than their record so we can’t look over them. We definitely want to throw that first punch but we have a lot of things we need to do better if we want to win.”
One player who could be tasked to cover the sharp-shooting Mitchell is Mays, who’s coming off one of the more impressive stretches of basketball in recent LSU memory. As part of the Tigers 14-point comeback against Missouri in the final two minutes, it was Mays who ignited the struggling Tiger offense, scoring nine points in the span of 30 seconds.
Mays is having a career year for LSU, averaging 14.5 points in SEC play while being asked to guard the opposing team’s best offensive player. Mays said he never had a stretch like that in his entire career and is a moment he’ll remember for a long time.
“It was a pretty cool moment for sure,” Mays said. “You have those games where, for so long, it feels like nothing is going right. So I actually told the guys in the huddle that this is going to be an ugly one but we just have to figure out a way to win. We won in the weirdest way but it worked out.”
It’s that level of leadership and confidence that had Wade gushing over the work ethic and leadership that the junior guard has displayed since day one of his arrival at LSU. Wade said that consistency that Mays has in everything he does, was there long before Wade arrived to LSU in 2017.
“He has earned everything,” Wade said. “Everything he gets, he deserves. You have no idea how hard of a worker he is. He is the best. You never bet against consistent behavior. He is one of the most consistent human beings I have ever been around.”
Wade said he tells other players on the team that if they want to make it to the NBA and accomplish all the goals they set for themselves in life, just follow Mays around for a day.
“You don’t have to do the Biology homework that he’s doing,” Wade said. “If you want to see regiment just look at him. There isn’t one thing that we’ve asked him to do that he hasn’t done, he’s unbelievable. Oh, man, I don’t even want to think about coaching a game without him.”
