Slow and steady wins the race, except for when it pertains to the LSU men’s basketball team.
After opening Wednesday’s game against the University of Vanderbilt with a 13-point deficit, the LSU men’s basketball team will have to capture a win against Southeastern Conference foe University of Georgia on Sunday at 2 p.m. on the road to bring its SEC record back to .500.
“It was apparent that we started off slow against Vandy,” said LSU sophomore guard Ben Voogd. “And teams like Vanderbilt that are well coached and play really well together are the types of teams we’ve had problems with this season. But with that said, when you start off like we did last night, it’s tough to come back from a huge deficit.”
Voogd said a strong start against Georgia might be the turning point the team is looking for.
“Last year I know Georgia was down and this year, they’ve had some big wins,” Voogd said. “They beat Vanderbilt just last week. They beat Kentucky and they’ve beat some other quality teams this year. I think we need to come out and start with a bang and maybe have a big 18-6 run against them instead of the other way around.”
The No. 21 Tigers (13-6, 2-3 SEC) have shot a dismal 38 percent from the field in the team’s first five conference matches, including 32.3 percent against Vanderbilt. The team also tied a season-low after scoring 53 points in the 11-point loss to the Commodores.
LSU basketball coach John Brady said the team’s biggest challenge is to improve its offensive numbers.
“We need to be more patient,” Brady said during the SEC Teleconference. “We need to grind it out at half court. We executed better in second half, but didn’t make plays at the right time. We have to be attentive to detail defensively and be more patient. You can’t score 55 points in this league and expect to put it on your defense every time.”
LSU sophomore forward Tasmin Mitchell agreed with Brady and said although the defense played well against Vanderbilt, the team’s offense will have to step up against the Bulldogs (12-6, 4-2 SEC).
“We didn’t play well on the offensive side of the ball and it’s kind of frustrating that we couldn’t get things that we wanted,” Mitchell said. “On every other team it seems like it’s the defense that they need to work on, but we’re stopping them on that side of the ball. We’re trying to do too much on the offensive end and we need to try and fix that this weekend.”
The Bulldogs enter Sunday’s matchup after winning four of their last five games. The only loss Georgia has suffered in that span was a 78-76 heartbreaker to No. 9 University of Alabama.
Although the Bulldogs enter the game coming off a nine-point win against No. 25 Kentucky, Georgia basketball coach Dennis Felton remembers the 81-52 whipping LSU put on the Bulldogs this past season.
“LSU probably gave us our worse beating of the year last season; [they] made it a long night right out of the gate,” Felton said during the teleconference. “It was everything we could do just to get out of there with any respect. They’re powerful and a highly athletic team. It’s a difficult task to slow that force down. They’re well coached and talented. They’ve got a player [Glen Davis] that’s as difficult to stop as any player in the country.”
With three of the team’s five starters averaging more than 10 points a game and with the Tigers’ recent struggles, the Bulldogs may be the “force” to slow down.
With a scoring defense that is No. 2 in the SEC – giving up just 59.1 points a game – the Tigers may be prepared to take on the conferences No. 3 scoring offense.
But with an offense that scores the second fewest points of any team in the SEC, Mitchell reinforced that LSU’s success must start on the offensive side of the ball.
“If we can do something on the offensive end, we’ve got a chance to win,” Mitchell said. “We can’t continue to stop teams, not convert on that side of the ball and expect to win. Georgia’s got some good perimeter guys, but it don’t matter how many times we stop them if we can’t put points up on the board.”
—–Contact Jay St. Pierre at [email protected]