LSU men’s basketball coach Will Wade knows what his 21st ranked Tigers are up against vs. 16th ranked Kentucky in Tuesday’s 6 p.m. SEC showdown in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

“They've got the two-time SEC Freshman of the Week in Tyty Washington, they’ve got the best 3-point shooter in the league in Kellan Grady, they’ve got the best rebounder in the country in Oscar (Tshiebwe) and they've got the number two assists guy in the country with (Sahvin) Wheeler.”

While having an eye on the Wildcats (11-2 overall, 1-0 in the SEC), LSU (12-1, 0-1 SEC) has been busy since Saturday’s 70-55 loss at then-No. 11 Auburn correcting the mistakes that led to LSU’s first loss of the season.

Wade only had to show his team the first 11 minutes of the Auburn game film to understand the first reason why LSU dug an early double digit deficit it couldn’t quite overcome.

“We’re 294th in the country in 3-point percentage,” Wade said, "so I don't know why the hell we take 13 threes in our first 18 shots. Six or seven were pretty good shots. The other ones were very difficult, challenged tough shots.”

Wade’s remedy is revoking the outside shooting privileges of some of his players the last few days in practice.

“I usually give guys a lot of freedom,” Wade said. “I've curtailed some of that (with) some of these workouts. “We’ll be a little bit more selective in our 3-point shots.”

Wade doesn’t know yet if freshman starting guard Brandon Murray, who missed the Auburn game with a pulled hamstring, will be available to face UK. That means that fellow freshman Justice Williams will again see action after scoring 7 points (including 1 of 2 3-pointers), grabbing 3 rebounds and making 2 steals in his college debut at Auburn.

Williams missed the first 12 games of the season with an undisclosed injury. Wade had planned to redshirt him, but Murray’s injury changed that.

“Someone told me I dropped him (Williams) in the deep end of the pool,” Wade said. “Playing at Auburn, I thought I dropped him in the middle of the ocean. It's not like we let him warm up playing a first game against Louisiana-Monroe.

“Justice played great, his poise was tremendous. He's earned more opportunities. He studies diligently, he really wants to be a great player, he's always working and he's always watching film. I love that.”

Wade has gone with an eight-man rotation since the season-opening game. But now with the addition of Williams and possibly junior forward Shareef O’Neal who hasn’t played this season trying to heal a nagging foot injury that limited him to 10 games last year, Wade believes he has to expand his rotation.

“With COVID and everything that's going on right now,” Wade said, “we need our top 10 guys healthy. That’s kind of the goal moving forward.”

The 6-10, 220-pound O’Neal may get limited minutes against Kentucky because the Tigers need as many big bodies on hand to deal with UK junior center Tshiebwe, a 6-9, 255-pound transfer from West Virginia.

He’s the Wildcats’ leading scorer (15.8 points) and rebounder (15.2 rebounds). In recent back-to-back games in UK’s current four-game win streak, Tshiebwe had 28 and 20 rebounds vs. Western Kentucky and Missouri respectively.

“He puts his big ass in front of the rim,” Wade said of Tshiebwe, “and he eats up every basketball.”

Wheeler, who played his first two seasons for Georgia where was a second-team All-SEC selection last year, has a history of giving LSU problems.

A year ago when the Tigers split a pair of games against Georgia, Wheeler averaged 17.5 points and 11.5 assists. In the Bulldogs’ 91-78 win in Athens, he recorded the first triple-double in school history with 14 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds.

UK coach John Calipari’s team has won on three of its last four trips to Baton Rouge, but his current squad lost its only true road game to date this season 66-62 at Notre Dame on Dec. 11.

Wildcats’ reserve guard Davion Mince said the LSU matchup is a “statement game” that should prove UK can win on the road.

“We can come into your house and we can dominate, the same way we do here,” Mince said. “We want to prove that there's no layoff, that we're a legitimate top 10, top five team in the country, no matter if we're playing at home or away.”

Also at Tuesday's game, LSU will hold the ceremony to name the court in honor of former Tigers' head coach Dale Brown, who led the Tigers to two Final Fours.