Preview: LSU Basketball Hoping to Find Some Answers Against Mississippi State
Will Wade has made it very clear to his team what is expected of each individual player. From the big three of Javonte Smart, Cam Thomas and Trendon Watford trickled throughout the rest of the depth chart, LSU just needs more from its entire roster to claw out of this five game skid that has left the once promising 2020-21 season on the edge of a cliff.
That all starts with pulling out a must win situation on the road against Mississippi State on Wednesday night.
The Bulldogs (11-9, 5-6) have been an up and down team this season, beating top 25 teams in Florida and Missouri but losing to Vanderbilt and Texas A&M, two teams at the bottom of the conference. Mississippi State is led by its guards DJ Stewart and Iverson Molinar, who are both in the top five in the league in scoring.
Stewart is averaging 17.7 points per game while Molinar is up to 16.8 points per game to lead an offense that has had its struggles over the last few weeks. The Bulldogs have had two games where they've failed to reach the 50 point mark but are an elite defensive team that's No. 4 in the conference, allowing opponents to score 65.2 points per game.
It's also a team that ranks among the country's best in grabbing offensive rebounds, a sore spot for the Tigers throughout the entire 2020 season.
"Big, physical team, fifth in the country in offensive rebounding, obviously defensive rebounding hasn’t been a strength of ours," Wade said. "Two of the top five scorers and starting to get some production off the bench. Big, physical group and be a big challenge for us on the road.”
Offense has been something that's been hard to come by for LSU in recent weeks on a consistent basis. In the Tigers' most recent losses, it's been a struggle from an efficiency stand point as the three point percentage has plummeted and some of the most versatile scorers on the team are struggling to convert at the rim.
The extra few days of practice were beneficial for the program from an offensive perspective as it was able to really focus on how the team can have success without forward Darius Days. Wade said the junior forward has a chance to play Wednesday against the Bulldogs but said if he did, he'd only be 85-90% which can help this team in terms of spacing and on the glass.
LSU simply needs more from some of its role players outside of Watford, Thomas and Smart. While more scoring from the role players would be welcomed, Wade said there are other areas the coaching staff is hoping those role players will be able to step up and provide improvements in.
"We don't leave ourselves much margin for error in the sense that those three all have to play extremely well," Wade said. "We need some contributions from those other guys in other facets. Like, we need guys that want to rebound, we need guys that want to dive on loose balls. We need contributions in other areas; we need winning plays, winning spirit.
"We need those type contributions from some of these other guys and hopefully we can get that. It’s been very clearly explained the last couple days what’s needed and hopefully we’ll get it, or get a better version of what we’ve been getting from those guys."
In Days' absence, Shareef O'Neal and Josh Leblanc received an uptick in minutes but Wade revealed that O'Neal's foot injury which kept him out of the start of conference play, is flaring up again. Look for Josh Gray to potentially grab some minutes against the Bulldogs with the uncertainty surrounding the big men's status.
"Shareef, we'll see. He didn't practice yesterday. He didn't do much of anything yesterday. We'll see if he can go today," Wade said. "We're getting ready to practice here at 12:30. We'll see what he can do. Hopefully, he can go. We need him. We'll see how he is."
Wade also said that there will be a change to the starting lineup on Wednesday which he hopes will fix some of the issues that have cropped up in recent weeks, but didn't want to tip his hand. Tip-off from the PMAC is set for 8 p.m. on ESPNU.
