GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
The LSU men’s basketball team is on a roll with newfound talent on the outside and inside in addition to quality depth, but it will be no night on the beach when the Tigers (5-0) play Drake (4-2) in the Emerald Coast Classic in Niceville, Florida, on Friday (8:30 p.m. CBS Sports Network).
Drake is under a new coach in Eric Henderson, formerly of South Dakota State, with a revamped roster. But the Bulldogs are coming off a 31-4 season in which they won the Missouri Valley Conference regular season at 17-3 and advanced in the NCAA Tournament with a 67-57 win over Missouri before falling to eventual Elite Eight team Texas Tech, 77-64.
An LSU win will advance the Tigers to a 6 p.m. game Saturday against the winner of DePaul (4-2) and Georgia Tech (5-1), which play at 7 p.m. Friday. The two losers play at 3 p.m. Saturday.
“If you look to the first five games, we got out of it what I had hoped,” LSU coach Matt McMahon said. “First off, I wanted to schedule with an opportunity to get Jalen Reed back in the mix, and that worked out perfectly with him getting back ahead of schedule from injury.”
Maybe more than what he envisioned. The competition has not been the greatest, but LSU is second in the nation in scoring with 98.6 points a game and third in scoring margin at plus-28. And the Tigers play fast.
Reed, a returning junior power forward who missed most of last season with a knee injury, is averaging 11 points and six rebounds a game in just 18 minutes a game off the bench. LSU had nothing in reserve like that last season when it finished 14-18 and 3-5 in the SEC.
Junior transfer point guard Dedan Thomas Jr. is fourth in the nation in assists with 7.9 a game and is scoring 14.2 points a game. He also has exactly zero turnovers in his last two games. Forward/center transfer Mike Nwoko leads the team with 19 points a game and leads the SEC in field goal percentage at .760 and is fourth in the league in scoring.
Versatile transfer forward Marquel Sutton is 37th in the nation with 9.4 rebounds a game with 14.4 points a game, including 12-of-32 shooting from three-point range for 37 percent.
“I wanted to really start to develop and built the chemistry of our team, and I thought we made some strides there,” McMahon said. “Ultimately, you want to keep getting better. We’ve given up two many offensive rebounds and haven’t forced many turnovers. I’d like to see us make some progress in those areas.”
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