By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
The LSU basketball team and coach Matt McMahon continued their slow and quiet death Saturday with a sloppy, 83-71 loss to Georgia in front of about 3,000 fans by game’s end.
The Tigers (14-9, 2-8 Southeastern Conference) looked helpless over the last nine minutes, stumbling, fumbling and bumbling their way from a chance to no chance. LSU committed 14 turnovers with three in the last five minutes and struggled to hold on to loose balls as Georgia pulled away.
The Bulldogs (17-6, 5-5 SEC) led by only 57-53 with 12:01 to go in front of about 6,000 after LSU’s Max Mackinnon hit two free throws. But from that point on, Georgia bulldozed the Tigers, taking an 11-point lead at 66-55 with 7:58 to go and leading by as many as 17 at 77-60 with 4:15 left after the Tigers had drawn withing 69-60.
“Obviously, there’s great disappointment in where we’re at from a record standpoint in SEC play,” LSU coach Matt McMahon said. “Certainly not where we envisioned being at this point.”
But it is almost the exact same record at this point last year after 23 games – 12-11 and 1-9.
LSU was 12-1 with healthy point guard and top player Dedan Thomas Jr. before his foot injury just before SEC play began last month. He has missed seven of the Tigers’ 10 league games with the injury, which he re-injured on Jan. 28 in a loss to lowly Mississippi State (11-12, 3-7 SEC). State has lost two straight since that win, by the way, after losing five in a row before it, including five of those seven losses by 15 or more.
The Georgia game was Thomas’ second straight miss, and he is likely to be questionable or doubtful for the Tigers’ next game, which is against No. 21 Arkansas (17-6, 7-3 SEC) at home on Tuesday (8 p.m., SEC Network), as he has not practiced since before the Mississippi State game.
“He’s something we definitely miss,” said Mackinnon, who led all scorers with 26 points, but couldn’t do it alone. “Lineups change, but I believe in everyone we’ve got on our roster.”
Senior transfer Rashad King looked like a worthy Thomas replacement just a week ago as he scored 18 points in LSU’s win at South Carolina. On Saturday, he was 0 for 6 from the field and 0 for 3 from three-point range with three turnovers in 22 minutes.
Yet despite the terrible ending, LSU actually opened the game on fire, taking a 13-4 lead less than five minutes in on a layup by center Mike Nwoko, who had six points, three rebounds and a blocked shot in 10 minutes in the first half, but drew two fouls. The Tigers extended that to 31-16 just past the midway point on back-to-back three-pointers by P.J. Carter at 10:15 and 9:50.
“We had a lot of momentum for the first 10 minutes, and we just kind of let our guard down and let up the last 30 minutes and the rest of the game,” said forward Marquel Sutton, who scored 14 points. “And we can’t do that.”
Georgia coach Mike White changed defensive strategy at that point and started switching screens, the Bulldogs flat got more physical. McMahon had no answer, or didn’t have the players to try to answer.
And just like that, it was gone as Georgia went on an 8-0 run to cut LSU’s lead to 31-24 at the 6:58 mark. A 26-6 overall blitz from the 8:53 mark to 25 seconds remained gave Georgia a 42-37 halftime lead. LSU never got closer than four in the second half.
Nwoko scored all of two points in the second half and had no rebounds before fouling out with 5:22 left after playing only three minutes in the second half because of the foul trouble, which has plagued him all season in the SEC games.
Georgia forward Kanon Catchings scored 23, including 5 of 6 from three-point range, and guard Jeremiah Wilkinson hit 18 points.
Catchings nailed 3 of 3 shots from three-point range and 5 of 5 from the field for 14 points in the first half. Wilkinson also had double figures in the first half with 10, including two from long range.
Mackinnon led the Tigers with 14 in the first half.
“Obviously thrilled with the start of the game,” McMahon said. “I thought we were really dialed in on both sides of the ball. Executed at a high level. All ball screening actions were really effective. We were sharing the basketball. At that point, we were nine assists to only two turnovers.”
LSU followed that with three assists to 12 turnovers the rest of the game.
“Credit to Georgia,” McMahon said. “They started switching a lot of screens, were really physical on defense. That got them out in transition.”
Georgia also killed LSU on the offensive boards with 12 of those in the second half after just four in the first half.
“A lot of them led to dagger threes,” McMahon said.
Georgia hit 10 of 25 from three-point range to 5 of 23 by LSU.
Arkansas will come to Baton Rouge for Tuesday’s game after winning its fourth out of five on Saturday at Mississippi State easily, 88-68.
“We can’t separate,” Sutton said. “We’ve got to stay together as a group, as a team, just like we’ve been doing that all season. When adversity hits you’ve got to stay together, and we’ve got to move on to the
next game and put this one behind us.”
Sutton said it all without realizing it – “Just like we’ve been doing all season.”
That’s the problem.
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