The No. 1 team in the country is coming to the PMAC on Saturday, yet Oklahoma is on the backburner for the LSU men’s basketball team.
Players said the Sooners will be a non-thought, and a non-issue, because a talented Georgia team is coming to Baton Rouge at 8 p.m. tonight in the PMAC.
“We’ve talked about that game,” said senior guard Keith Hornsby. “But it hasn’t drifted our focus away from the true task at hand, which is Georgia.”
Nevertheless, this week is one of the “bigger” of the Tigers’ (12-7, 5-2 Southeastern Conference) season, junior guard Tim Quarterman said.
“Yeah, this is a big week for us,” he said. “On a consistency level, we’ve got to put together some of our best games and get the wins.”
But the Tiger players don’t think of their matchup against Georgia as a prototypical “trap game.”
The Tigers set to face the battle-tested Bulldogs (11-6, 4-3 SEC), who are on a two-game win streak against Missouri and Arkansas, backed behind their SEC-best defense.
Against 15 of its 17 opponents, Georgia’s tenacious defense held their victims under their season-average field goal percentages — keeping opponents to an average of 37 percent from the field on the season.
“It could be easy for us to lose focus,” said sophomore forward Craig Victor. “And to think of Oklahoma because they’re the No. 1 team, but we have to be honest with ourselves. That’s going to be an important game tomorrow night. We have to fight, compete and play hard, as if it was our last game.”
Quarterman, a Savannah, Georgia native, acknowledged the Bulldogs’ ability but isn’t shying away for them.
“They’re enemies when we step between those lines,” he said.
Georgia is led by a dynamic veteran guard, 5-foot-10 junior J.J. Frazier. Frazier sits atop the SEC in steals at 2.3 per game, No. 2 in 3-point percentage at 50 percent on the season and averages 16.1 points per game.
Frazier’s individual toughness is nothing new to Hornsby. That’s who Georgia is, he recalls.
“They’re always tough,” Hornsby said. “Frazier’s really been playing great. We just have to contain him. He’s been shooting great, and scoring in many different ways. He’s going to be a tough assignment. They all are. But, it’ll be a fun one, at that.”
The last time a 5-foot-10 starting guard came to Baton Rouge, Ole Miss’ Stefan Moody scored 33 points in a heroic performance for a road conference opponent. But, in the Tiger’s most recent wins against the Rebels, Arkansas and last weekend against Alabama, Victor said LSU is headed in the right direction as it has figured out how to finish games. But Georgia’s a different beast, as is all of the SEC at this point in the season.
Everyone is vulnerable, he said.
“It’s really one game at a time,” Victor said. “It has to be, especially with the nonconference losses. There’s a few we let get away. You look at a team like Georgia, and anybody could be beaten at any time.”