LSU travels to the Coleman Coliseum Saturday to take on Alabama. LSU has not won there since 2004...so this place haunts our program. Bama is 10-7 on the year and 1-4 in conference. They played a decent non conference schedule, and their lone SEC win was a 20+ point drubbing of South Carolina.

Projected Lineups:
Alabama:
F Michael Kessons 6'9 223 4.5ppg 3.6rpg
F Jimmie Taylor 6'10 240 5.8ppg 5.8 rpg
F Riley Norris 6'7 207 7.6ppg 3.7rpg 41% 3-point
G Retin Obasohan 6'1 208 14.5ppg 3.5rpg 2.0 apg 35% 3-point
G Arthur Edwards 6'6 210 9.6ppg 4.1rpg 45% from 3
Key Reserves:
F Shannon Hale 6'8 226 10.6ppg 32% from 3
G Justin Coleman 5'10 160 8.4ppg 3.9apg

LSU:
F Craig Victor
F Ben Simmons
G Keith Hornsby
G Jalyn Patterson
G Josh Gray

Offensively:
Stats:
PPG: 66.9 (299th nationally)
FG%: 43.3 (181st nationally)
3p%: 33.9 (197th nationally)
FT%: 64.5 (307th nationally)
APG: 10.9 (325th nationally)
Turnovers per game: 13.9 (267th nationally)

Alabama is not a very good offense. They are 243rd in the nation in offensive efficiency. Avery Johnson likes to slow the tempo way down and be methodical on offense, but that is not the only reason they have low scoring totals. They shoot very poorly from the FT line, have a high turnover rate, and are very average in shooting in general. They like to use Coleman and Hall off the bench as "super subs." They'll use a 9-man rotation, but 7 plays will play the majority of minutes. They are a big team though, so that is something to look out for.

Obasohan is their best player followed by Hale. Both are very good athletes and can create some problems for LSU if they aren't focused all game.

Defensively:
Stats:
PPG: 66.7 (70th nationally)
FG%: 39.8 (35th nationally)
RPG: 34.4 (279th nationally)
SPG: 5.8 (197th nationally)
BPG: 4.8 (40th nationally)
Turnovers forced: 13.2 (134th nationally)

Their calling card is defense. They aren't as good defensively as A&M or UF, but they're still very good. They do not depend on turning the opponent over a lot. Instead, they play fundamentally sound and try to contest every shot.

Alabama is a very methodical team, and with a coach like Avery Johnson, they are well coached. So do not expect many dumb plays or missed assignments.

Keys to the Game:

1.) Players need to step up. That's the only key to the game. This is too important of a game for Craig Victor to receive silly fouls, or for TQ to only try half the game, or Simmons not be aggressive for 30+ minutes. With each passing game, we get less and less opportunity to showcase our skills.

Prediction:

This is a must win. Despite the hundreds of posters that came out of nowhere freaking out about TAMU, that loss didn't hurt us. Most analysts still expect LSU to get in...as do I. If we lose to Alabama, then things will get dicey, and people would have a right to get pissed. I'm not sure why people are so upset when LSU loses by 14 AT Texas A&M when the same night Kansas loses by 20+ at Oklahoma State. We were in the game until Victor got in foul trouble and we just withered away at the end.

There was an interview on ESPN with the committee chair and he said the committee absolutely 100% takes into consideration a team when healthy vs not healthy. They then went on to talk about how Hornsby and Victor missing the beginning of the year hurt, but they're back now and we look like a different team. People around here don't think so, but we've lost 2 SEC games...against the #1 and #3 SEC teams...on the road. Andy Katz also talked about how if LSU goes down to the wire and are on the bubble, having Ben Simmons WILL matter.

LSU still controls their destiny. We have plenty of difficult opponents coming up, and we can still dictate what happens. We have 7 losses. Will we win out? No, we will not. But we are not sure what games we will win or lose. So let's try to just root for the same team and hope they play well. Lately the disdain for the basketball team around here is downright depressing.

LSU - 70
Bama- 65