LSU’s men’s basketball struggled to find their rhythm against Texas as their offense couldn’t quite capitalize off second and third-chance opportunities.
With only 4 total offensive rebounds, compared to Texas’ 10, LSU handed over possession after possession to the Longhorns, as they didn’t know what to do with Texas’ defense.
“I thought we did a really good job in the first half,” Texas’ Coach Rodney Terry said. “They didn’t have any fast break points, which was really critical for us. We really wanted them to sit down and have to execute against our half-court defense.”
Despite their mistakes, the Tigers fought hard and were only down by 6 points at the half. However, the Longhorns took full advantage of their momentum to continue increasing the point deficit. Offensive threats like Tramon Mark and Tre Johnson, who both scored 18 points made it difficult for the Tigers to bounce back.
“And then I thought their offensive execution was elite and their shot-making was fantastic,” LSU’s Coach Matt McMahon said. “And we weren’t able to respond either defensively or on our offensive end of the floor.”
LSU just couldn’t seem to get lucky, as they went 2-15 (13.3%) from the three. And Texas outscored the Tigers 58-33 in the second half. Jordan Sears, who led the scoreboard for the Tigers, reflects on where he thinks the Tigers went wrong.
“Starts with practice,” Guard Jordan Sears said.
“We’ve got to practice how we’re going to play. And it starts by everybody holding each other accountable, whether it’s a turnover, missed box-out, offensive rebound, defensive rebound, we’ve all got to come together to really kind of nip those things in the bud if we want to try to win games moving forward.”
Ranked second to last in their conference, this is the fourth straight loss for the Tigers. Moving forward, LSU will need to match the intensity and the physicality of their opponents if they want to turn the season around.
“Especially with this league, you can’t dwell on the losses,” Sears said. “It’s going to keep turning over like it has been, so you’ve just got to figure out what’s going on next and try to execute better moving forward from there.”
With a 31-point loss, the Tigers have fallen to 1-7 in SEC play with only a few more days to turn things around and prepare before their game on Wednesday in Georgia.
