LSU Basketball: 3 reasons why Tigers fell to Saint Louis Billikens
Bad offense in the first half
Before you decide to call me out, and point out that “a basketball game isn’t won or lost in the first half”, you should think about hard it is to win a college basketball game, when you have dug yourself a hole after the first 20 minutes. I was surprised that LSU was more interested in playing selfish basketball later in the first half, because they had a good thing going early on.
Trendon Watford (who finished the game with 24 points on 66.6% shooting), did a great job of either dribbling the ball into the low post, or catching the ball in the low post, keeping the ball away from his defenders, staying patient, and then making the right play.
Most of the time, Watford was met with a double team down in the post, and because Ja’Vonte Smart has a knack for knowing where the open spots on the floor are located, he had a few catch-and-shoot opportunities, that he cashed in on.
However, as the first half continued, the Tigers began to reveal their true offensive identity, which is one of the reasons why they went into halftime down by 10 points.
It is pretty evident that the Tigers are invested in keeping the ball on one side and allowing guys like Ja’Vonte Smart, Trendon Watford, and Cameron Thomas to go at their defenders, and figure out ways to gain the upper hand (those ways could include a simple double crossover, a change of pace in-and-out crossover, a slight hesitation into a spin move in the paint, a simultaneous between the legs dribble move and exaggerated step back, etc).
You could certainly say that Will Wade’s style of offense, helped the Tigers get back into Saturday afternoon’s game, but you would also have to acknowledge, that it also forced the Tigers to play from behind (which didn’t work out for them when the final buzzer sounded).
If you want to go 1 on 1 just about every possession that is fine, but at least give me a few ball reversals first, before you decide to take matters into your own hands. Just take a second to think about this, if the Tigers had tried to move the ball a little more in the first half (when Cameron Thomas clearly couldn’t get it going on his own), they would have made it harder for the Billikens to anticipate what they were planning to do next.
Moving the ball a little more in the first half, also may have resulted in a tie ball game at halftime (which would have made the Tigers second half offensive surge more meaningful).
Just ask yourself this question, what good is scoring 53 points in the second half, when you were down by 10 points at halftime, and still can’t figure out things defensively in half #2? Again, if the Tigers had found a way to at least even the score at the conclusion of the first half, they may have been in for a different kind of second half (perhaps a second half where they weren’t trailing the whole time).
It is important for me to point out that, LSU only managed to pull down 4 offensive rebounds against Saint Louis (with all 4 offensive rebounds coming in the second half), which means that the Billikens had no problem limiting the Tigers to one shot in the first half.
The Tigers are known for their commitment to crashing the offensive glass, which is probably why they were perfectly fine with taking ill-advised jumper after ill-advised jumper, and hoping that someone would clean up their messes.
Unfortunately for them, there were too many possessions that ended too early for the LSU, and while they received great production from Smart, Thomas, and Watford (who combined for 67 points), the Tigers made the game much harder than it needed to be.
Additionally, Saint Louis is the last team you want to play hero ball against, because they are a hard-nosed defensive squad, that will man up, sit down, and determine the type of shots that you will wind up taking. In other words, I wouldn’t go into a game against Saint Louis without a sound offensive plan, because if you do, it’ll be a very long game.