By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
LSU basketball coach Matt McMahon spent much of last Tuesday dumbfounded after watching his team lose to a lightly regarded South Carolina, 78-68, in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Tigers actually played well in the second half, winning that portion, 43-28. But what happened in the first half left McMahon clearly perplexed.
The Gamecocks, who came in with a 9-5 record and a 106 NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) ranking, exploded to a 10-0 lead just 4:02 into the game and 24-5 less than six minutes in. LSU never recovered in falling to 12-3 overall and 0-2 in the Southeastern Conference. Their 35 NET has since dipped to 46.
And suddenly LSU is looking down the barrel of a repeat of 2024-25 when the Tigers started off 0-3 and 1-10 in the SEC on their way to a 14-18 season – 3-15 in the league.
To avoid an 0-3 opening, LSU must beat No. 11 Vanderbilt (15-0, 1-0 SEC) at noon on the SEC Network. Then it’s Kentucky (9-6, 0-1 SEC) at home on Wednesday before Missouri (12-3, 1-0) a week from Saturday at home.
“We’ve got to get a lot better in a hurry,” McMahon said. “For whatever reason, I didn’t have us ready to go. I thought we’d be amped up and ready to go. We got annihilated in the first half. steals. For whatever reason, I didn’t have us ready to go with the activity and urgency that you have to play with on the defensive side of the ball.”
And LSU is not expected to have point guard Dedan Thomas Jr. for the third straight game because of a lower leg injury. That has hurt LSU’s offense from a scoring and creating standpoint.
But it’s more than that.
“We did not finish play with the physicality and toughness required in the SEC in the painted area,” McMahon said. “You look at the numbers. We got 17 offensive rebounds. We did enough there. But we didn’t turn them into enough points. Our finishing around the basket wasn’t good enough, and I thought their physicality had a lot to do with that.”
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