Scoring was second nature for Johnny Jones’ LSU basketball team during its 2015-16 campaign.
The Tigers ranked second in the Southeastern Conference in scoring with 78.8 points per game, trailing only Kentucky by less than a point.
But scoring leader Ben Simmons was Philadelphia’s No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, three-point marksman Keith Hornsby has joined the Mavericks and Tim Quarterman belongs to the Trail Blazers organization.
Void of three NBA talents and four of its top six scorers, Jones projects a different offensive strategy after the ball tended to stick and cause empty possessions at times last season.
This season, his offense stretches the floor and stresses keeping the ball on the move. Jones said he expects assists and field goal percentage will rise as a result.
“We’ll look for different scoring opportunities,” Jones said. “Our key is going to be guys understanding how to play together, hitting open guys, sharing the basketball … Being a balanced scoring team certainly will help against our opponents because I think it makes us much tougher to scout against when you play that way.”
Junior college transfer Duop Reath allows the Tigers to stretch the floor on offense better than they did last season, Jones said.
With 7-foot-2 wingspan, Reath spotlights as a rim protector at power forward or center and can step out to make mid-range jumpers and threes. He scored 14.6 points per game during his sophomore campaign at Lee College while converting 61 percent of his attempts.
Junior forward Craig Victor, an 11.5 point per game scorer, said he also worked on his three-point shot during the offseason after making just one last season.
“That’s a part of my game,” Reath said. “Shooting, I’m pretty comfortable with it. It’s something I’ve always had, just in JUCO I developed it a little bit more.”
Without the big men clogging the lane, sophomore guard Antonio Blakeney will have free reign to attack the basket. In fact, junior forward Aaron Epps said he expects Blakeney, who averaged 18.6 points in the last 11 contests last season, to be one of the most prolific scorers in the country.
But Epps added that Blakeney is an unselfish player who will kick the ball out to open shooters when the defense collapses on his drive.
Jones said sophomore guard Brandon Sampson is an added dimension alongside Blakeney with his ability to score in multiple facets, including in the open floor attacking the basket and shooting from behind the arc.
“Those guys did a good job last year, but this year there’s going to be more movement,” Blakeney said. “You got a lot of guys who can shoot the ball, space the floor and bigs who can finish at the rim. Just more movement in the offense.”
The Tigers project an uptick in three pointers made after converting the 13th-most threes in the SEC last year with 6.2 per game, despite attempting the ninth most.
With junior guard Jalyn Patterson running point, LSU’s entire starting lineup is more than capable of knocking down threes. Patterson made 44 threes during his freshman year but was limited last year with a lingering knee injury and his production dropped to 30.
“We have a lot of good shooters,” Blakeney said. “The main thing is everybody being aggressive and being confident in each other’s game, knowing that Brandon Sampson or Jalyn or whoever the case may be will knock that shot down if I swing it to them and vice versa.”