The road to the top of the SEC doesn't get any easier for LSU basketball as the Tigers face arguably the league's hottest team Tuesday night at No. 18 Ole Miss.
The Rebels (13-2, 3-0) are coming off a 2-0 week where they upset No. 10 Auburn at home and traveled to Starkville and took down No. 14 Mississippi State. Beating two of the top 15 teams in the country skyrocketed Ole Miss into the top-25 after being predicted to finish last in the conference before the season began.
LSU (12-3, 2-0) has fared well in its first two conference outings of the season by beating Alabama at home and claiming its first road win in over a year at Arkansas. The guard play was phenomenal Saturday with Tremont Waters, Skylar Mays, Ja’vonte Smart and Marlon Taylor combining for 61 of the 94 points scored in the overtime thriller.
Coach Will Wade sees the backcourt in need of another standout performance after calling the Rebels' guard play ‘the best in the league.’
The Ole Miss backcourt is headlined by junior Breein Tyree, who is currently third in the SEC in scoring at 17.5 points per game. Joining Tyree in the backcourt are Terence Davis and Devontae Shuler, who combine to average 26 points per game.
Wade said what makes the Ole Miss guard rotation so lethal is that a different player has the hot hand every night. For example, Tyree scored a game-high 31 points against Vanderbilt, while Davis led the team with 27 points against Auburn.
“Those three combine for 80 percent of their scoring,” Wade said. “It’ll be a big test for us to be able to stop them because our defense has not been good in SEC play, and we’re going to have to get that corrected. If you shut one of them down, they have two or three others that can do the same thing. And that’s been problematic for us.”
LSU is surrendering 84 points per game in SEC play and has turned the ball over 35 times in the two games it’s played.
Some good news for the Tigers is that freshman forward Darius Days will play without a minutes restriction after suffering a knee contusion late in the win at Arkansas. Days has been an integral part of the eight-man rotation Wade has settled in on, and to lose him for any amount of time would have required some reorganizing of the rotation.
Since going to the eight-man rotation in non-conference play, Wade thinks the team chemistry has only improved and feels comfortable with any of the eight guys that have carved out a roll in the rotation.
“I thought that was the best thing we had at Arkansas, we were really connected,” Wade said. “The guys had a good way about them and they’re going to need to be more connected at Oxford because it’ll be like the atmosphere in Houston.”
The 8 p.m. matchup will be televised on SEC Network.
