By Hunt Palmer
After a soft five-game home stand to begin the season, LSU steps up in class Friday night.
The Tigers meet Drake in the first round of the Emerald Coast Classic just outside Destin, Florida. This game kick starts a five-game stretch against tougher competition. LSU will play either Georgia Tech or DePaul on Sunday. Wednesday’s ACC-SEC Challenge brings a trip to Boston College. Then LSU travels to Fort Worth to take on Texas Tech before a New Orleans battle with SMU.
LSU’s offense wrecked its first five opponents, but this stretch of five games in 18 days should paint a clearer picture of where LSU stands pre-conference.
Drake enters the game 4-2 with a pair of wins over lower-level programs in Simpson College and Buena Vista. The Bulldogs made the second round of the NCAA Tournament a season ago but lost head coach Ben McCollum to Iowa.
HAWKEYE HEMORRHAGE
Drake has had a really good program over the years. Only Houston, Gonzaga and Duke have won more games since 2020 than Drake, but this roster had to be cobbled together after a coaching change. McCollum brought six players to Iowa when he left for that job following a 31-4 season. That Iowa team is 6-0 and beat Ole Miss earlier this week.
Three Bulldogs added seven transfers this season making up half the roster. That’s led to early heartbreaking losses to Robert Morris and SIU-Edwardsville on shots at the buzzer.
They do feature a pair of great shooters. Braden Appelhans is 14-for-28 (50%) from deep early in the season, and Andrew Alia is 11-for-22 (50%). LSU will have to find those two early and often.
DJ DIMES
Dedan Thomas is on a historic run. In his last two games, he’s got 17 assists without a single turnover. That’s hard to do no matter the competition. He leads the SEC in assists and ranks fifth in the country in that number. Everything LSU wants to do offensively runs through Thomas.
He’s done a fantastic job of finding Mike Nwoko on lobs at the rim and spotting open shooters who were knocking shots down last time out when LSU thrashed Omaha behind 15 threes. The Tigers have topped 90 points every time out, and Thomas is a huge part of that.
LSU is currently ranked second in the country in shooting percentage.
CRASH THE GLASS
Drake has really struggled on the glass. The Bulldogs rank 287th in defensive rebounding percentage, and they haven’t played a power conference team yet. LSU’s got great size in Nwoko, Jalen Reed, Robert Miller and Marquel Sutton.
The Tigers haven’t had a lot of misses to clean up this year, but they probably won’t shoot 55 percent for the season. In this game, LSU needs to get to the glass for easy second shot opportunities and chances to draw contact at the rim.
Friday night’s game tips off at 8:30 on CBS Sports Network.
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