When Ole Miss senior guard Marshall Henderson returns from a two-game Southeastern Conference suspension tonight, LSU senior guard Andre Stringer knows what to expect.
Quick cuts, precise reads on ball screens and for the Rebels’ leading scorer to hoist shots other players wouldn’t fathom.
It was Stringer who drew the defensive assignment on Henderson last season when the Hurst, Texas, senior poured in 22 points and was 4-for-9 from beyond the arc, leading his team to an 81-67 thumping of the Tigers.
“I just tried to make it hard for him,” Stringer said Monday. “He made good plays, made good passes. But going down there this year, we have a different team.”
But it won’t just be a different Tiger team when the two schools square off at 8 p.m. tonight in Oxford.
The bruising Rebels post duo of Murphy Holloway and Reginald Buckner graduated, meaning the scoring lies almost exclusively on the perimeter for coach Andy Kennedy’s club.
Now toting length and depth on the bench it sorely missed last season, LSU (11-4, 1-1 SEC) presents the polar opposite of the Rebels’ stout front line that Kennedy surmised was the best in the conference.
“We’ve got to be very physical,” Kennedy said. “We’ve got to keep our bodies on them. We can’t come in to this game thinking we’re going to out-jump them or out-reach them because they’re all long and all athletic.”
Kennedy heaped praise on LSU junior forward Johnny O’Bryant III, a Cleveland, Miss., product that Kennedy still agonizes over losing to the Tigers during his recruitment.
O’Bryant, who said he expects 15 or 20 family members in the stands when the two teams face off tonight, said he relished banging down low with the likes of Buckner and Murphy.
“Those guys were a great challenge to play against,” O’Bryant said. “But with those guys not being there, Ole Miss is missing a lot, so me and [freshman forward] Jordan [Mickey] just have to do a great job of taking advantage of that.”
Mickey and O’Bryant could hold the key to the contest on the glass, as Ole Miss center Demarco Cox and forward Aaron Jones averaged only six rebounds between them in the Rebels’ first two SEC games.
The Tiger duo averaged 11 rebounds in the Tigers’ first two conference games, while freshman forward Jarell Martin has chipped in 4.5, including six off the bench during a career-high 18-point performance in Saturday’s 71-68 win at South Carolina.
To combat the discrepancy in the post, Kennedy said he’s imploring his team to be physical at the point of attack.
“We call it first blood,” Kennedy said. “We’ve got to try and get them first and get to the ball first because of their tremendous athleticism. It’s a long, athletic front line. We know they’re going to pose a lot of different challenges for us.”
In the backcourt, the Rebels have more than just Henderson manning the perimeter. Kennedy called junior guard Jarvis Summers an all-SEC caliber player while sophomore Derrick Millinghaus averages 11.2 points per game.
But in his first game back, the focus will center on Henderson.
LSU coach Johnny Jones said his team won’t be able to get in Henderson’s head, but sending varied matchups could pay dividends in an arena the Tigers haven’t won in since the 2008-09 season.
“He really works well without the basketball and utilizing angles — worrying about where that defender is so he can make his next move to make the next play,” Jones said. “I think teams will have to show him different looks in order to try to force him to score in different ways, and hopefully not just allow him to get comfortable.”

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