It isn’t out of the ordinary for LSU Men’s basketball to struggle out the gate, especially on the offensive side of the ball.
Most of its lower scoring games in SEC play were due to slow starts, with the Tigers having a hard time even reaching 20 points in the first half.
But it seemed like those problems were in the past or had at least been mitigated. LSU had reached at least 32 points by halftime in three of its last four games, with the exception coming against one of the best defenses in the SEC in Mississippi State.
Unfortunately for those who had been optimistic about that preceding stretch of games, they had to bear witness to one of its worst halves of the season on Saturday. In the first half against the thriving Texas A&M Aggies, nothing went right on either side of the ball.
After an early midrange jumper from Tyrell Ward to get the Tigers on the board, they would remain at two points until the 10:40 mark of the half and wouldn’t convert on another field goal until there was just over eight minutes left in the period. It managed to scrape together some points toward the end of it, but still entered halftime with just 17 points and a large, 24-point deficit to chip away at.
“I appreciate the fans who stayed, I would have left at half time,” LSU head coach Matt McMahon said on the performance. “When you’re playing against teams in this league, you’ve got to come out and put your best foot forward from the opening jump ball.”
A comeback in that position was highly improbable, but LSU still found a way to make it a game. It opened the period on an 11-3 run, quickly cutting its deficit from 24 to 16 thanks to three straight three-pointers. Then, with continued success from behind the arc, the game steadily got closer, eventually becoming a single-digit game with four minutes to go.
Adam Miller scored 15 of his 18 points in the second half, coming to life after a rough first half from the field, where he converted on just one field goal at the buzzer. Tyrell Ward added nine to LSU’s eventual 45-point second-half points, finishing the game with a career-high 15 points, and the team as a whole shot 53% from the field and 47% from three in the period.
“We exerted a lot more energy than we did in the first half, not just on the court, but with our communication, picking each other up,” Miller said on the team’s second-half performance. “The intangibles in the game were picked up in the second half.”
But against a team in position to win its tenth conference game of the season, it just wasn’t enough. Each time the Tigers got the game within single digits, the Aggies responded on the other end.
Eventually, LSU ran out of time.
A solid second-half performance, one of its best halves of the season, was overshadowed by the fact that it couldn’t get the job done because of how south it let the game go early on.
The Tigers outscored the Aggies 45-33 in the second half but at the end of the day, it’s still just a moral victory. When asked what the difference was between the two halves, both McMahon and his players highlighted effort and energy as key reasons why the team struggled in the first half.
“We didn’t play 40 minutes, we played 20 minutes,” Miller stated. “If we would have played 40 minutes, we probably would have been more tired than this. It is kind of like a cycle that we have to break.”
LSU now has six more chances to end its now 12-game losing streak before the conclusion of the season. Its next chance comes on the road against Georgia, a winnable matchup against a team that has lost six of its last eight games.
