Tigers tip off with Tarleton State Wednesday night

By Hunt Palmer

A new-look LSU basketball team hits the PMAC floor Wednesday night.

Only two players from last season’s 3-15 SEC squad return as Matt McMahon enters year four at LSU. The Tigers entertain the Tarleton State Texans at 7:00 pm to tip off a stretch of five home games in 17 days to start the season.

LSU got things started with an exhibition win over Central Florida on October 26. The Tigers outscored the Knights by 14 in the second half behind a dominant performance by junior point guard Dedan Thomas Jr. who had 19 points and nine assists.

Thomas will be tasked with running the show for the Tigers this year as a group of 11 new scholarship players tries to come together.

LSU is old and experienced. McMahon will lean on that early as his team navigates the non-conference for two months before the rigors of the SEC come in January.

Tarleton State is coached by former Texas A&M and Kentucky head coach Billy Gillespie. After one season at Texas Tech in 2011-12, Gillespie left due to health concerns. He was out of coaching for three seasons before returning to his alma mater Ranger College in the junior college ranks. He spent five seasons there and has been with the Texans since 2020.

Tarleton State opened its season Monday with a 96-76 loss at SMU.

WHAT WINGS?

Thomas is going to be the key to LSU offense and rhythm all season long. He’s a proven commodity as a college point guard, and LSU is going to use his vision and savvy to initiate the offense. It’s less clear who will play the majority of the minutes at the two and three spots.

In the exhibition, Max Mackinnon and Marquel Sutton manned those spots in the starting lineup and played over 27 minutes each.

Mackinnon is a 6-foot-7 Aussie who was a very efficient shooter (40.7% 3 pt) and scorer (14.5 ppg) at Portland last season. Sutton is 6-foot-9 and was the Summit League Player of the Year a season ago at Omaha where he scored 18.9 points per game and scored 20 an impressive 20 times.

Those two could be option one, but Ron Zipper should factor in, as well. The 26-year-old Israeli freshman has played four years of professional basketball overseas and profiles and a crafty scorer with a pure left-handed shooting stroke. Zipper has missed some practice time and did not play against Central Florida. More about his status should be known Wednesday night.

Sharpshooter PJ Carter from Memphis and Northeastern transfer Rashad King, a tough defender, should also see time.

FRONTCOURT FIRST

LSU’s guards will shoulder a lot of the scoring weight this season, but that shouldn’t have to happen in the opener.

Tarleton State’s tallest starter on Monday was 6-foot-6 senior Chris Mpaka. No one over 6-foot-6 played 20 minutes against the Mustangs. Andy Sigiscar, a 6-foot-9 redshirt freshman from France, saw 14 minutes.

LSU’s Michael Nwoku (6’10”, 261) and Jalen Reed (6’9”, 245) have a huge size and athleticism advantage in this game. Neither is a true back-to-the-basket force offensively, but they can handle jump hooks over much smaller defenders in a spot like this.

I don’t expect LSU to abandon Thomas in the high ball screen game or the three-point shot to force feed the post players, but this is clearly LSU most glaring advantage in terms of talent in this game.

SHOOTERS SHOOT

Last year, aside from Cam Carter, LSU’s most important shooters failed to perform. Jordan Sears’s numbers dipped from Tennessee-Martin. Mike Williams and Dji Bailey shot 25 percent from three. Vyctorius Miller shot it well in non-conference games and then shot 29 percent in SEC games.

You can’t win basketball games without making outside shots.

This LSU team has proven college shooters like Mackinnon, Carter and Thomas, and Zipper shot it really well in Israel. It would be really nice to see a couple of these guys get off to a good start with the ball going through the basket tonight.

I’ll set the number as 11 threes. Over that will be a good night for the Tigers, even against a small team that should be vulnerable to LSU’s post touches.

GAMEDAY

A reminder that LSU is running the “Beat the Buzzer” promotion that gives fans 50 percent off select food, drinks and beer from the open of gates until 6:50 for a 7:00 tipoff. The game will be streamed on ESPN+ with Lyn Rollins and Victor Howell on the call.