LSU opens league home slate with South Carolina

By Hunt Palmer

Must win games don’t exist in early January.

We’ll call this one “really need to win”. LSU hosts South Carolina on Tuesday night in the Maravich Center. The Gamecocks have played five power conference games. They’re 0-5.

Saturday afternoon an unbeaten Vanderbilt team completely controlled the action in Columbia, holding South Carolina about 15 points in the rearview the entire second half.  LSU is not Vanderbilt, but this is not a very good South Carolina squad.

Lamont Paris has started nine different players this year and plays 11 pretty consistently. No one on the roster plays 30 minutes per game.

For LSU, Matt McMahon’s group comes back to Baton Rouge after a disappointing opener. The Tigers fought into position to win the game at Texas A&M but didn’t make the plays necessary late.

Tipoff is at 6:00 on ESPNU.

GENERATIONAL BATTLE

No, not a battle we’ll talk about for generation. Just a battle between players from different ones. Meechie Johnson is the South Carolina point guard. He’s a sixth-year senior. That means when he started his college career, Jalen Reece was in seventh grade.

Johnson started at Ohio State, transferred to South Carolina after two seasons, spent two with the Gamecocks before heading back to Ohio State for a year and…back to South Carolina.

Reece was really good for about 30 minutes on Saturday, but he buckled a little bit at the end of the game. South Carolina does not pressure the ball like A&M does. The Gamecocks are No. 314 nationally in steals.

Johnson leads South Carolina in scoring and assists, so Reece’s defense will be key to limiting LSU’s visitors.

MISSING MARQUEL

Mike Nwoko and Max Mackinnon have been really good offensively for about three weeks. LSU needs Marquel Sutton, too, with Dedan Thomas out. Sutton is 3-for-14 from the floor in the last two games and has missed his last nine threes.

LSU counted on Sutton for double figures in eight of the first 12 games, and he’s gone for nine and three in the last two. There is not enough offense on the LSU bench for Sutton to produce those types of numbers.

CLOSING TIME

I don’t expect a late lead to be coughed up on Tuesday night.

LSU has been excellent from the free throw line all season, and South Carolina is among the nation’s best at 79.4%. That’s sixth in the country.

Reece hasn’t been as good as Thomas from the line, so that’s a wrench in LSU’s numbers, but both teams can really convert from the charity stripe if they have a lead late in the game.