BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s basketball team looks to build on the momentum of a 13-point win over Rhode Island in Jamaica when the Tigers host Missouri State Friday night at 7 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Tiger fans with tickets for the Saturday football game with Texas A&M in Tiger Stadium can show their ticket at the venue’s upper concourse ticket windows Friday night and purchase tickets for just $5 for the basketball game. Tickets will also be available at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office from Noon until 5 p.m. on Friday and then beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the Maravich Center.
As usual, LSU students are admitted free with a valid ID.
The game will be streamed on the SEC Network + with Lyn Rollins and Victor Howell on the call. The Voice of the Tigers Chris Blair and former LSU head coach John Brady will have the call on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (flagship Guaranty Media Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge).
LSU is 4-2 after splitting a pair of games against Utah State and Rhode Island, but more importantly, as Coach Will Wade discussed in his media session, the Tigers did not turn the one loss into two as it did a year ago when following a tough loss to Florida State, the Tigers were unable to recover against Oklahoma State in Orlando.
Instead the Tigers worked hard to get the ball inside to forwards Emmitt Williams and Darius Days, who are shooting over 60 percent from the field. Williams hit 12-of-17 shot in scoring 27 points, a career high, and Days hit 6-of-8 in a 16 point night. More importantly, the pair combined for 18 rebounds and helped LSU get 54 points in the paint in the 96-83 victory.
Also contributing was Trendon Watford with 16 of his own as Skylar Mays added 14 and Javonte Smart 11. Both Mays and Smart moved the ball inside, each getting six of LSU’s 19 assists on 38 made buckets.
Missouri State is a deceiving 3-4 as it comes in to Baton Rouge on the end of a five-game road swing. The Bears have lost by one to Little Rock, three to No. 21 Xavier, four to Miami and one to Buffalo. MSU won, 71-69, over Saint Joseph’s last weekend in the Charleston Classic.
Keandre Cook leads the Bears with an average of 16.9 points and 5.7 rebounds a game with Gaige Prim at 16.5 points a contest and Lamont West averaging 10.4 markers. The Bears average 67.0 points a game and 38.6 rebounds.
Mays has led the Tigers in scoring all season at 18.7 points per game, also pulling down 5.7 rebounds and 3.2 assists. Williams is averaging 15.2 points and 7.5 rebounds, while Days is at 13.3 points and a team best 8.0 boards. Watford is averaging 12.3 points and Javonte Smart 10.5 points and 4.2 rebounds.
The game on Friday is the first of three at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in 10 days for the Tigers as LSU hosts New Orleans on Dec. 3 and Northwestern State on Dec. 8.
Coach Wade met with the media on Wednesday and here are some of his comments:
A recap of the team’s trip to Jamaica and how he feels going forward…
“I thought the biggest thing we showed in Jamaica was we started to develop a little bit of an identity. I thought we played harder than we’ve played all year. I thought we played extremely hard for a vast majority of the minutes. That’s something we want to keep as our identity. The other thing is I thought we played inside-out. We got to the paint a lot. I thought the second game especially, I thought we did what we needed to do in the paint, drawing fouls, playing inside-out. I thought those things are core parts of what we want to be our identity to be. We need to build off that as we move forward here. We’ve got to do that stuff much more consistently. We haven’t been very consistent in either of those areas up until Jamaica. Now we’ve got to continue to be consistent in those areas and build towards that being an identity and something we can count on night-in-night-out.”
On Javonte Smart attacking the basket …
“He attacks. He does a good job. We’ve just got to pick our spots. It’s got to be done a little bit differently than it was done with Tremont (Waters). I think Javonte played a really good game against Rhode Island. At the end there in the last minute we messed around a little too much for my liking. I thought he played a really good game. I thought he did a really, really good job. He attacks. He attacked early in the game. He had the left-handed layup to start the game. He got in the paint and hit a floater. I thought he did a nice job, but certainly he can continue to improve and will continue to improve as he finds his spots. You’ve got to find your spots like Tremont had to find his spots. People forget now too; this time last year Tremont was averaging five turnovers a game. We had to bench him before the Saint Mary’s game. It’s a long season. We were turning the ball over at an alarming rate at that point too and then we got it down to right around 11 for conference play. Everything is a work in progress and we’ll figure it out.”
On the team being able to get a win against Rhode Island after losing close to Utah State…
“We were much better against Rhode Island. I knew our guys would be ready. We moved on very quickly. It wasn’t just the players last year; it was the coaching staff. It was a gut-punch for us too, the Florida State game (last season before also falling to Oklahoma State). We didn’t react probably as well as we should have reacted to the Florida State game. I thought our staff, our players, everybody in the organization reacted quite a bit better (after Utah State). We were able to move on and we were able to play our best game to date against Rhode Island.”
On getting good minutes from James Bishop…
“It’s a confidence booster for me in him. It’s big. I think it was big for Bishop. (Aundre) Hyatt did some good things too. Still waiting on him to make a shot, but he did do some really good things in terms of defense and rebounding. His shooting is going to come. He’s such a good shooter. You know that part of it is going to come so it’s just a matter of — he’s shown me he can do the other things which we weren’t sure of. Bishop came up huge for us with Javonte picking up the two fouls early in the game. The plan was to play “JB” more, obviously than we played him on the Friday night game. I think his confidence is getting better. But the reality is, my confidence in putting him out there in tough situations; I though he handled himself well. My confidence in him is a lot more now. You never know how people are going to react until you throw them in there and sometime as a coach it’s got to be forced. Kind of like we were with Javonte’s foul trouble. I think he’s going to really be able to build from this. Our staff is going to be able to build from this in his confidence.”
On having turned the ball over twice during last shot situations…
“We’ve got to work on that. I called the timeout at VCU. I didn’t call the timeout against Utah State. We’ve gone and studied all that and looked at all that. Every team is different. When we had Tremont we just kind of let things go and we got our guys in space and that worked out really, really well. Now it’s a different team. We seemed to be a lot better against Rhode Island when I was calling sets every time down the court. We were kind of programming where everyone went so that’s probably something we need to look at later on in the game as well.”
On what he expects from Missouri State…
“Missouri State is really good, they’re really big and they are the most physical team we’ve played all year. They have the best post player we will have played against this year and it’s going to be a battle on Friday night. Hopefully everyone that is in town for Thanksgiving will come to the game because we need a great crowd. Our students are gone but we need as good as a crowd as we can get on Friday night because it’s going to be physical. It’s going to be a really good game; they are really well coached and like I said, they are very physical. They should have won at Xavier earlier this year, they’ve lost two games by one point and to Miami by four points. Those are their losses and the Xavier game was at Xavier, and the Miami game was on a neutral floor. They were picked to win the Missouri Valley Conference for a reason. They have really good guard play and really good bigs so it’s going to be a tough matchup for us.”
On what the team has to improve …
“Our post defense has to be better on Friday, our spacing on offense has to get better, obviously not turning the ball over is a big point, and keeping the ball out of the paint. We have to get better in a lot of areas, but those would be the highlights.”
On Emmitt Williams’ recent play and how he can continue playing well …
“We have to continue to give him the ball. He and (Darius) Days are shooting over 60% so we have to get them the ball more. I was very vocal about that; we have to feed the guys that shoot the highest percentages. It’s simple math. We are going to continue to get him the ball and he’s going to continue to deliver for us. I’ve been very proud of his approach … Emmitt (Williams) has taken a very serious approach. He’s always watching film, always studying, always working out. He got a workout in today and he’s got a film session later today before we practice. His approach is really good, he keeps having that approach good things are going to happen. The morning after the Utah State game, we were watching film as a staff and he pops in at 9 o’clock and wants to start watching film. They weren’t even supposed to be up until 10:15 and he’s in there watching film an hour beforehand. That’s the stuff that pays off, that’s why he gives himself a chance to play well. Does that mean every game is going to be perfect? No, but he’s going to keep giving himself opportunities to play well when he does things like that.”
On watching his former players play in the NBA …
“I get updates on them every day. I have them on my phone, so I know exactly how they play, and I text with a lot them. Kavell Bigby-Williams had 18 and 14 in his G-league game the other day so I know what’s going on. I don’t get to watch them nearly as much as I would like to, but I got to see Tremont’s (Waters) highlights. I am obviously very happy and excited for him.”