LSU Basketball Hoping to Push Through Inconsistent Play in Final Home Game of 2021 Season
Two years ago this time, LSU was cutting down the nets at the PMAC after knocking off visiting Vanderbilt in blowout fashion to capture the SEC regular season title. Now, the 2021 LSU basketball team is fighting for position in the SEC standings and NCAA tournament rankings as the Commodores come knocking for the final home game of the season.
All season long, consistency has been a battle that LSU has fought and lost. The Tigers will win a few games in a row and then revert back to the problems that have plagued the team all year long.
Whether it's a lack of focus on defense or rebounding, the last two games have been a definite step back for the program as the most vital time of year approaches. Consistency is what Will Wade and the coaching staff have spent 16 hours a day trying to find some solutions to.
"Inconsistency, starting in another week is going to send us home so yea, we're very concerned about that. We're very worried about that," Wade said. "I'm the leader of the program. It's not on our players. It's on me. If a player is not playing well, that's my fault. There's things I need to be doing to help that guy play better. That all falls on my shoulders."
It's the final home game of the season for the purple and gold and while the Tigers are still in decent standing for an NCAA tournament appearance, a win over the Commodores is a must. Vanderbilt (7-13, 3-11) has lost three of its last four is playing its best basketball of the season.
The Commodores lost to Alabama and Kentucky by single digits and are coming off a five point win over Ole Miss. Jerry Stackhouse's squad is led by Scotty Pippen Jr. who has missed the last two contests due to a hip injury. Pippen is averaging 20.5 points and 5.2 assists, both second in the SEC and Stackhouse is hopeful that Pippen will return against the Tigers on Tuesday night.
"Hopefully Scotty's back," Stackhouse said. "That will be huge for us. He's feeling better. Hopefully he's back by the LSU game, but if not I definitely think he'll be back by Saturday. He said he's feeling better. The MRI didn't show any structural damage or anything, just kind of like a bruise that needs to heal to where he feels comfortable to go out there and be himself."
Vanderbilt will however be without the conference's leading rebounder Dylan Disu, who's out for the rest of the season after undergoing season ending knee surgery last week. Disu was averaging 15 points and 9.2 rebounds a contest.
A middling offensive team averaging 73 points a contest, losing their top rebounder for the season is a tough task. If Pippen can't play either, the Commodores would be without their leading scorer as well.
But that doesn't phase Wade any, who understands how well LSU must play in order to get back in the win column. Vanderbilt has six players shooting over 36% from three opposed to LSU's two (Darius Days and Javonte Smart) and the Commodores are second in the conference in three pointers made per game.
It's a team that's playing far better then it was just a few weeks ago and Wade knows the challenges that will be presented to his team.
"If they replayed some of their SEC games from earlier this year with their full roster, they’d have a lot better league record based on how they’re playing. This is a challenging game for us," Wade said.
"We’ve lost two in a row, we gotta win. I don’t know how much more warning we need then what happened at Georgia and what happened in the second half at Arkansas. We’ve got to play better, get back to how we were playing a couple of games ago.”
