By Hunt Palmer
With early losses piling up and promise dwindling, LSU faces a must-win game tonight.
No one hates the term “must-win” more than me. It’s as overused a cliche as exists in sports. It applies here in a way that can present itself in the non-literal connotation.
If LSU loses to Arkansas, the Tigers still have 14 more league games to play. The season will go on. If LSU loses on Tuesday, home losses to otherwise winless conference foes in Arkansas and Vanderbilt will make it clear that LSU does not have the ability to compete in a ruthless SEC.
On the other side of the Arkansas game, the Tigers face a pair of Top 10 teams, Texas A&M and Alabama, on the road before No. 1 Auburn comes to the Assembly Center.
Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky are still to come.
This Arkansas bunch is talented, like the last 20 John Calipari teams over three stops. But the Hogs haven’t put it together, yet, which is why they’ve already dropped five games and haven’t scored a league win.
Tennessee spanked Arkansas by 24 in the SEC opener. Then Ole Miss and Florida came to Bud Walton and won. Things are testy in Fayetteville, because luring Calipari to Fayetteville from the Big Blue Throne in Lexington was supposed to produce big wins.
That search continues.
Boogie with DJ
Calipari is no stranger to precocious freshmen. The jewel of this rookie class is Boogie Fland, the nation’s No. 1 prep point guard out of Harlem.
Fland has been awesome, leading the Hogs and freshmen nationwide with 92 assists while chipping in with 15.5 points per game. He’s impressively skilled and poised running the show.
DJ Wagner came over from Kentucky. He’s a physical 6-foot-4 driving guard who is averaging 10.4 points per game. He’s also shooting a respectable 35 percent from deep.
Calipari always runs an offense predicated on his guards finding driving lanes. That’s what Fland and Wagner are determined to do.
Block Party
Another hallmark of Calipari teams is length and athleticism. That leads to a lot of blocks. The Hogs rank No. 4 in the nation in blocked shots thanks to big contributions from Zvonimir Ivisic and Trevon Brazile.
Ivisic is just a 7-foot giant in there. Brazile, a 6-foot-10 big, is an elite athlete. He missed last season with injury after transferring from Missouri.
LSU’s guards are on the smaller side. Cam Carter and Jordan Sears could have trouble finishing consistently over those two as well as Jonas Aidoo, the Tennessee transfer.
It may behoove the Tiger guards to pull up from six feet at times.
Open Mike Night?
Sears is struggling in SEC play. He’s 8-for-26 from the floor and 4-for-15 from deep. He’s turned the ball over nine times with eight assists.
Curtis Givens hasn’t shown much more than that. He’s got six turnovers, three assists and a shooting percentage of 33 percent.
Why not Mike Williams?
He shot 37 percent from deep last year and was hardly a turnover machine as a true freshman.
Williams left the team briefly for personal reasons in December. He played mop up duty on Saturday and tossed in a three ball.
I’d give him some first half minutes to try to stabilize things at the point guard spot.
