LSU Basketball will need Cam Thomas to come up huge to beat Michigan
Make life difficult for Hunter Dickinson
Texas Southern decided to throw a few different looks at the Big Ten Freshman of the Year on Saturday, but they couldn’t prevent him from having an awfully efficient afternoon, as he scored 16 points on just 6/7 shooting.
Unfortunately for Texas Southern, Dickinson was able to play to his strengths by establishing deep post position early and often and taking advantage of the Tigers’ failure to provide timely weak side help after Dickinson was getting fronted.
When LSU faces off against Michigan on Monday they will have to either double team Dickinson as soon he catches the ball in the low post (if they decide to stand behind him), or use their feet to get around Dickinson/pin him on their backside and trust that a teammate from the weak side will slide over promptly.
In order for LSU to succeed using the first tactic that I discussed, they will need to be prepared to fly around, close out under control/take away the middle and stick with cutters stride for stride. At this point, Dickinson knows that double teams are going to come his way frequently, which is why he is able to pass out of them effectively by finding the open man standing on the perimeter, or darting through the lane at full speed.
Additionally, Dickinson is extremely effective as a roller in pick and roll situations, which makes communicating during those situations even more critical for LSU. To make things as simple as possible, the guard that is defending the ball-handler in any given P&R situation must let the big man know how he is planning to approach getting screened (after the big man calls out the screen of course).
Is he going to try to fight over the screen and meet the ball-handler right away? Or go under the screen and get the back to the ball-handler as soon as he can? Well, that is up for the LSU guard to figure out, but doing so in a timely manner will help limit the number of open looks that Dickinson receives at the rim. An LSU big man will only know if they need to provide a soft hedge if an LSU guard declares his intentions to go under a screen, and makes it clear that he needs a second to recover.
On the offensive end, I would love to see LSU force Dickinson to switch onto the guards on the perimeter and defend them consistently. If Cameron Thomas comes off of a screen and sees that Dickinson has switched on to him (for example), he should test out Dickinson’s footwork by attacking him immediately without using any setup dribbles.
If Dickinson is able to successfully defend a decisive stop-and-go move, or a basic right-to-left crossover into a hard step/jab to the right then so be it, but the Tigers shouldn’t make Dickinson’s life easier by playing around with the ball unnecessarily on the perimeter. On top of that, I believe that the Tigers will be better off on Monday if they don’t bail Dickinson out by shooting low percentage step-back jumpers.
Obviously, a guy like Cameron Thomas can hit multiple step-backs like it’s nothing, but his willingness to get into the paint and score/draw fouls at the rim will be much more valuable against the Wolverines.