By Hunt Palmer
It’s a consolation battle at The Greenbriar between UCF and LSU.
The Knights were downed by Wisconsin in a game that was never close. Wisconsin led by 21 with minutes left in the first half on Friday and never really looked back. LSU put a brief scare into Pittsburgh late in the second half, but the Panthers were too tough and pulled away for an 11-point win.
Sunday’s winner will feel like the weekend was a success. The loser will have missed an opportunity at some November resume building.
Last season LSU lost games against Dayton, Syracuse, Kansas State and Texas prior to league play. That meant that 9-9 in the SEC wasn’t good enough to sniff the NCAA bubble. The league promises to be every bit as tough this year, so LSU needs to sock away some Power 5 non-conference wins while they’re available. Sunday is a good chance.
Johnny Dawkins is in his ninth season at the helm in Orlando. His team opened the season with a gutty home win over Texas A&M. The Aggies led by nine with less than four minutes to play. UCF fought back to take the lead and survived three long range tries by the Aggies that missed. The Knights won it, 64-61.
The Knights’ offense runs through the guards. Two-guard Jordan Ivy-Curry leads the team at 16.8 points per game. Keyshawn Hall is second at 16.2 points per game. Point guard Darius Johnson has scored over 1,000 points at UCF and averages 13 per game. No one else averages double figures.
It’s hard to get a grasp on pace of play with this UCF team. The Texas A&M game was a bit of a slog while the game with Florida Atlantic finished 100-94. We know LSU prefers to get out a run a little bit, so a game in the 70s approaching 80 feels about right.
Here are a few things to watch for.
Threes, Please
LSU flat out has to shoot the ball better from three-point range. LSU doesn’t have a back-to-the-basket big to help facilitate offense. That means everything needs to come off the dribble drive. Without a consistent threat behind the arc, teams can cut off driving lanes more easily. Through five games, LSU is shooting just 29.8 percent from deep. That has to come up. Cam Carter has been great. Jordan Sears shot 43 percent last year. He’s at 35 percent right now. Vyctorius Miller, Curtis Givens and Mike Williams are a combined 11-for-41. That’s 27 percent. If that group picks it up a little bit, the offense will be more efficient. Stretches like Friday when LSU missed 14 field goals in a row will dig too deep a hole.
Nothing Free
UCF is winning the free throw line in a big way early on. They are 105-of-138 from the line while their opponents are just 63-for-88. The Knights outshot Wisconsin 37 to 16 from the charity stripe on Friday. LSU can’t allow those slashing guards to create fouls near the rim. Ivy-Curry shoots 88 percent from the line and gets there six times per game. Ishmael Lowe and Jalad Lowe from Pitt got to the line 16 times and made 12 of them. LSU wants to be physical on defense, but keeping UCF off the free throw line will be imperative.
Backcourt Bounce Back
Carter and Sears are the lifeblood of the LSU offense. Miller is coming along. Jalen Reed is going to have his nights. But those two have to be good on offense, and they weren’t on Friday. That resulted in LSU’s worst shooting day of the year and lowest point output. Shooting is a fickle thing. One day it’s there, the next it may not be. Those guys have played a lot of basketball, and their track records suggest the tough times won’t last very long. The turnover have to be cleaned up, as well. Sears gave it away six times on Friday. If LSU is going to get on the plane back to Baton Rouge with a weekend split, Carter and Sears along with Dji Bailey need to outplay Ivy-Curry, Hall and Johnson.
