re: LSU 58, Texas A&M 54 - Recap

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LSU shot 21.7% from beyond the arc, 38.1% field goals, and only 41.7% from the free throw line. Still, LSU was able to win the game by forcing 24 turnovers to their 11 turnovers.

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Did you see how weird our stats were as a whole as compared to A&M? If you read all the stats alone, without watching the game, your conclusion would be that we lost and lost big! We should have lost that game, and as you point out, our fantastic defense won it for us!
:jump1:

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No comments on Del Piero?

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You know, he had a little trouble on a play or two but he isn't gonna be the answer if we are pressing. It's just too fast for him.

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The guys continue to pass to him as though he's an agile, quick and experienced center though.
He's none of those. His early fumbled catches last night were not really his fault, he just can't react to the quick, low bounce passes in traffic. Especially some of the lazy passes we send at times. He just can't grab them, like say Justin Hamilton did last year or JOB can. That's not his strong point. The sooner the other players can grasp that, and make passes he can catch, the fewer low post turnovers we'll have.

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I didn't fault any of those offensive possessions we lost early to him.

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That's where we differ. I faulted him on each one. While he shouldn't really be put in that position, the ball is hitting both of his hands. I think Coach Jones was right to bench him.

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I agree he was right to bench him, but it wasn't because he couldn't handle some passes that guards threw in to a double teamed walkon...

I think he was benched because we went into a full court press, and you don't want your slowest player involved in the press.

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Agreed

The press definitly gives LSU there best shot at winning games in my opinion. If only we can convert on the turnovers we create LSU would have won by double digits last night. I think Coach Jones should try and run the same defence in the half court set i think it would be just as effective and save their legs a little. All in all this team is right at the corner from being a very competitive team this season if we can stop the the mental mistakes and convert on more scoring oppurtunties when we do create turnovers.

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Did you see how weird our stats were as a whole as compared to A&M? If you read all the stats alone, without watching the game, your conclusion would be that we lost and lost big! We should have lost that game, and as you point out, our fantastic defense won it for us!

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This is why coaches emphasize tunrnovers so much. If you get a steal and go down and hit a three pointer, for instance, that is a 5 point turnaround. You kept them from getting 2 points and made 3 of your own. Do that four or five times and even if you only get two pointers you can make up a big deficit. Of course the opposite is true if you are the one making the turnovers.

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Question for basketball gurus: Is there a correlation between the up-tempo, high pressure defense and our poor shooting? That is, does our defensive play exhaust our guys to the extent that it affects their shots (both from the floor and the free throw line)?

Serious question from a casual fan. I love the high pressure defense, but just wondering if it take a toll on the offensive side of the ball.

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It's really tough to say, personally I don't think it has a very big effect. I think the big problem has been better defenses and us simply missing shots. We ran up tempo early in the year against lesser opponents and shot great. To me it is a little bit of everything. Most of these players are from last years team that shot very poorly in a very slow paced offense. I just don't think we have many shooters. Going at the pace we do however gives LSU chances to catch the opponent out of position for easy scores.

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That's where we differ. I faulted him on each one. While he shouldn't really be put in that position, the ball is hitting both of his hands. I think Coach Jones was right to bench him.

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I just watched the game (didn't have time last night) and I didn't see anything that resembled what you just said. In that early run there was a pass from JOB3 that went over his head and another that a guard tried from 5 feet above the 3pt line to the low post that the defender got in front of. In the previous game I remember him getting a pass off of his shins, but not this one. I think it is more that the team wasn't prepared to play with a big man this season. I do agree with you about this team passing into double teams on the post a lot, with JOB and ADP alike. They don't really run a true low post offense.

What I take from this game is that LSU can run a press and pressure the other team more than the 5 minutes or so as in earlier games. Also, CJJ apparently does know how to call a timeout.

As it was, I can't get too high about the game as we were in our building and we were still pretty lucky to pull it out. We match up well against A&M and they appeared to have a bad night. I'll wait until the next game to see if we can follow it up.

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We match up well against A&M and they appeared to have a bad night.

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I won't disagree that we match up well against aTm, but I think their struggles were due to LSU's defense. Even when we didn't get steals in the press, we forced them to go fast. aTm's adjusted tempo is 12th to last in the NCAA. They play half court ball. We forced them to go faster than they liked and it showed in their possessions. Missing shots that they may not have if they weren't running etc.

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The press absolutely changed the game for LSU on a night where the shots were not falling.

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It has every time they've run it this year. It's the only thing we've done consistently well this year.

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Johnny O'Bryant had his second consecutive double double with 14 points, 10 rebounds (5 offensive), 2 assists, and 2 steals.

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He did shoot a couple of 18-footers that were ill advised and he did have 5 turnovers again, but if he can get 14/10 every night and limit those two negatives above, I'll take that every time.

Half-court offense still terrible SOS, no other way to say it, but the defense was so active and energetic that it willed the game for us.

Had a couple of moments against the zone where we had some good inside passing, but they were few and far between.

And against man, hell I thought I was watching Trent's offense with the sloppy high ball screens that run us back to mid-court and seem almost alwasy to lead to nothing.

But hell man, I'll take the win.