The last time the LSU men’s basketball team left Tuscaloosa, Alabama, victorious, Avery Johnson was in the midst up his final full year as an NBA player with the Golden State Warriors.
Johnson, a New Orleans native and now the head coach at Alabama, will be squaring off against his home-state team and friend, LSU coach Johnny Jones, at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday at Coleman Coliseum. But, the stakes for Jones and the Tigers will be greater than just ending a drought that began after a 60-54 win on Jan. 31, 2004.
Following its largest margin of defeat against Texas A&M on Tuesday, LSU is eyeing just its second road win of the season, having lost six of its seven games away from the PMAC.
In fact, senior guard Keith Hornsby wasn’t even aware of the more than decade-long losing streak at Coleman Coliseum.
“Well after hearing that, it means a lot more,” Hornsby said with a smile. “Every game mean a lot to me. But, just having had road troubles so far this year, it would just be a great momentum builder to win. Every place in the SEC is tough to play [in]. There’s no easy out.”
As Hornsby pointed out, the Crimson Tide (10-7, 1-4 Southeastern Conference) have protected their home court for the most part, notching a 6-1 record in Tuscaloosa with its only loss coming at the hands of No. 23 Kentucky. Alabama, though, followed the Kentucky loss with a 23-point rout of then-undefeated South Carolina, which sits one spot behind the Wildcats in the current Associated Press poll.
Much like LSU, the Crimson Tide has lost its footing away from home, dropping two straight games at Vanderbilt and Auburn. In both of those losses, Alabama struggled to defend the perimeter, allowing a 9-for-16 clip from three-point territory by the Commodores and 11-for-30 performance by Auburn.
However, Jones is impressed with what Johnson has done with the program in his first year at the helm, highlighted by strong guard play that features senior leading-scorer Retin Obasohan.
“He’s got a team that’s been very competitive,” Jones said. “They’ve played extremely hard and had some success. When you talk about knocking off a team that’s undefeated and ranked in our league — one of the few teams that was still undefeated in the country at that time. To play the way that they did on that evening says a lot about his team and how competitive they’ve been.
The Tigers, on the other hand, had one of their most promising halves of perimeter shooting against the Aggies, finishing 5-for-11 from beyond the arc in the first half. Despite heading into halftime down just four points, Texas A&M clamped down on defense in the second half, holding LSU to just 32.1 percent from the field in the half.
The Tigers also turned the ball over 19 total times, which freshman guard Antonio Blakeney said was due to a deviation from the game plan.
“We just stopped moving the ball,” he said. “Every time our offense gets stagnant and we’re not moving the ball, we don’t look good, in my opinion. In the first half, we were moving the ball, making extra passes. Coach just told us that’s what he had to do versus that team. He showed us film of people of moved the ball versus that team and what kind of shots they got, and people who didn’t [move the ball].
“That’s when we started turning the ball over — when we just tried to stay stagnant. From the guards to the bigs to everybody, we just tried to stay stagnant and just do their own thing.”
A major part of the stagnant offense was the loss of sophomore forward Craig Victor II for a chunk of the second half, as he was relegated to the bench with four fouls. While Victor agreed the offense isn’t quite the same when he’s not on the floor, he repeated Blakeney’s sentiment of lack of offensive chemistry and discipline in the second half of Tuesday night’s game.
“I would say the offense does change a little bit, but we just have to play our game,” he said. “Like I said, it’s paying attention to detail, moving the ball. Everybody will get touches, but when the ball doesn’t move and you shoot early in the shot clock, you can be beaten by any team.”
You can reach James Bewers on Twitter @JamesBewers_TDR