LSU enters the Old Spice Classic on a 3 game winnings streak. After a 92-90 loss at now 6-0 UMASS, LSU has looked good in their last 3 games winning by an average margin of 21.3 points per game. In their most recent game, LSU returned freshman star Jarell Martin after he sustained an injury just seconds into the first game.

Martin's absence was less noticeable with the emergence in 6'9" freshman Jordan Mickey. Mickey has emerged as LSU's shot blocking, rebound taking, dunk producing phenom who seems to always have an exciting play to motivate the team. Alongside the freshman, Johnny O'Bryant has continued where he left off last season with double doubles in 3 of the 4 games averaging 17.8 points and 11.5 rebounds per contest. However, LSU's leading scorer is senior guard Andre Stringer, averaging 18.3 points per game.

Now, LSU gets to play 3 games in four days against some stout competition. The Old Spice Classic has one of the best groups of teams of the early season tournaments.

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For the tournament LSU's projected starting lineup looks like this:

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Old Spice Classic Rankings (KenPom.com):

Oklahoma St (5-0): 1
Memphis (2-1): 20
LSU (3-1): 51
St. Joseph's (2-1): 64
Butler (4-0): 66
Purdue (5-0): 71
Washington St (2-2): 157
Siena (2-4): 253

Some Opponent Notes:

St. Joesph's (1st rd opponent)

*Has beat Vermont and Marist. Lost to Creighton by 4.

*Average 19 seconds per offensive possession 310th in NCAA.

*Shoot 42.9% from three pt range.

*Sr Guard Langston Galloway is from Baton Rouge. Leads team with 18.3PPG.

*Projected Starters:
#24 Chris Wilson (6'3" 210 Jr)
#10 Langston Galloway (6'2" 202 Sr)
#43 DeAndre Bembry (6'6" 200 Fr)
#13 Ronald Roberts (6'8" 225 Sr)
#45 Halil Kanacevic (6'8" 255 Sr)

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Memphis (Likely 2nd rd opponent)

*Lost to Oklahoma St by 21, but beat Austin Peay and Nicholls St.

*Average 12.6 seconds per offensive possession, 2nd fastest in nation.

*Average 12 steals per game.

*Play 10 players over 10 minutes per game.

*Projected Starters:
#55 Geron Johnson (6'3" 197 Sr)
#11 Michael Dixon (6'1" 200 Sr)
#1 Joe Jackson (6'1" 174 Sr)
#4 Austin Nichols (6'8" 212 Fr)
#2 Shaq Goodwin (6'9" 242 So)

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The Rest of the Field:

*Oklahoma St has been dominant and have scored over 90 points in all 5 of their games.

*Oklahoma St PG Marcus Smart will be a top 5 pick in next years NBA Draft.

*Butler shoots free throws under 60% as a team.

*Butler starts 2 Sr's, 2 Jr's and 1 So.

*Purdue's AJ Hammons averages 4.5 blocks per game, right behind Jordan Mickeys 4.8 per game.

*Washington St lost to TCU so you know they are terrible.

Prediction:

LSU goes 2-1 with win's over Saint Joseph's and Memphis. Lose to Oklahoma State in championship game.

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Dirty Pierre•130 months

Team played about as well as you can play in 1st half versus St. Joe!
Mickey and Martin both impressive freshmen!
Should be playing great ball by the end of the season. GEAUX TIGERS!!:dude:

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floridatigah•130 months

Martin's jump shot :pimp:

Britgirl•130 months

Looks like well get the officiating crew from yesterday's OSU/Purdue game. :angry:
Last night's crews did 1st game and about to do 2nd.
Following that formula we get the trio who called a ridiculous amount of fouls and lengthened the game by about 20 mins

BigEdLSU•130 months

It looked like our guys were playing last night expecting a ton of fouls. If we can have the same discipline, I like our chances :geauxtigers:

Wild Thang•131 months

South, you gonna start a game thread?

:geauxtigers:

The Truth 34•131 months

Let's do this, fellas!!!

Cannot wait to watch this game tonight.

:geauxtigers:

ProjectP2294•131 months

I know folks in this thread have been discussing guys like Qualls, Brown, and Williams because they are all Louisiana guys in this tournament. But I've been doing some research, and I feel pretty comfortable that if you made a team of current Louisiana guys that went out of state for basketball (whether they had an offer or not from LSU) LSU would beat them. Not handily, it would be close, but they would lack quality front court depth and PG play. Dangerous on the wings though.

I may start a new thread one day about it. I do this every year for football and baseball, for my own personal satisfaction, but never actually post it. It's easy to see that football would wax the all-louisiana team. Baseball probably would as well.

ProjectP2294•131 months

Something weird is going on with this thread. It lists thunderbird with the last post before this one on the board, but when you click the link, the last post is the one I made earlier.

thunderbird1100•131 months

quote:
Something weird is going on with this thread. It lists thunderbird with the last post before this one on the board, but when you click the link, the last post is the one I made earlier.

I have no clue what's going on either, saw the same thing
My post was about hoping we dont have these Purdue/OkST refs tonight...they are awful.

LOL @ a team being in the DOUBLE BONUS 6.5 minutes into the half.

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BCMCubs•131 months

GEAUX!!!!!!!!!

heartbreakTiger•131 months

TIGERS!!!!!!!!!!

my body is ready for tonight

st. joes hoes going down

lil tiger22•131 months

Our length and athleticism will bother Saint Joes.
LSU 78 Saint Joes 69

Bryant91092•131 months

Good luck in the tournament. Should be some fun matchups.

lwlsu96•131 months

:cheers:

Signature•131 months

:geauxtigers:

It's gameday finally!

BigEdLSU•131 months

Thankful we have a damn good team to watch tonight! :nana: :nana:

lwlsu96•131 months

Gameday :nana:

Been looking forward to this tournament for a very long time. Going 2-1 with a win over Memphis would do wonders for our weak OOC schedule. A sweep with a win over Okie State and Memphis would have me fapping... My body is ready

:geauxtigers:

Harry Caray•131 months

quote:
A sweep with a win over Okie State and Memphis would have me fapping... My body is ready

Pants would be off. They'd either kick me out of the PMAC or banish me to the Roar Corps

Harry Caray•131 months

I'm posting here because LSUzealot fussed at me.

ProjectP2294•131 months

He has a point that ts annoyin that so many of our fans treat basketball like it doesn't exist. But with how dumb and annoying so many of our football and baseball fans are, I'm not sure its a bad thing. At least on this board. Still would like more people at the games.

Harry Caray•131 months

quote:
At least on this board.

And that's the thing, most of the folks came to this board because of football, or in my case, baseball.

I have and will, however, go to every basketball game at the PMAC possible. The support may not be huge, but it's consistent and will only grow.

Tiger Ugly•131 months

Thanks again SOS.

Excited to see how we do in this tourney setting. This is a great opportunity for us. And I think very important down the line in establishing a good power rating because not many opportunities to do so in our OOC to help both our rating and that of the conference.

SouthOfSouth•131 months

I'm curious to see if we press a low tempo team like this in a tournament setting. If we had a day off before our next game I think we press them 20 minutes minimum. With the 3 games in 4 days we may not force tempo. We shall see.

Walter White•131 months

I'd be totally down with going 2-1

:GeauxTigers:

Tiger Ugly•131 months

quote:
I'm curious to see if we press a low tempo team like this in a tournament setting. If we had a day off before our next game I think we press them 20 minutes minimum. With the 3 games in 4 days we may not force tempo. We shall see.

I think that will come down to how comfortable Johnny is in playing alot of players significant minutes as to how much we press.

I think it has been a challenge for the staff to find the right mix of players and finding the right place to play the right guys and with whom.

But I do think this weekend is huge. The players know it and the staff knows it. And we need to go all out to make our best possible showing, whatever that means.

LSUButt•131 months

I was looking at their team earlier and a couple things stood out. Obviously they like to slow the game down, but they only average 3 steals a game? And they get under 40 rebounds a game. I feel as though our athleticism can cause some real problems if we stay active and play smart.

austintigerdad•131 months

Tigers open as three point favorites over St. Joseph's. Interesting.

LSUButt•131 months

St. Joe's is also forcing opponent to turn it over less than 9 times a game as well. That's very low. We force around 15 a game. I expect to get 10+ shots compared to St. Joe's with turnovers and offensive rebounds.

lil tiger22•131 months

Tigers gonna wreck this tourney! Bout to burst on the national scene!

BigEdLSU•131 months

I've got to think that without anyone starting for St joes that's taller than Mickey, that he is going to have a lot of blocks.

SouthOfSouth•131 months

quote:
I've got to think that without anyone starting for St joes that's taller than Mickey, that he is going to have a lot of blocks.

They could play all 7'ers and Mickey would still manage 4 blocks...

Ignignot•131 months

Mickey gonna PIITB

Slapouttiger•131 months

Tigers need to work on there half court game, seems to be a area that will take the most time to be be a cohesive unit :pimp:

junkfunky•131 months

:geauxtigers:

joeytiger•131 months

My prediction is LSU destroys everybody, then coach drops a deuce at half court before exiting the arena. :geauxtigers:

Ignignot•131 months

quote:
My prediction is LSU destroys everybody, then coach drops a deuce at half court before exiting the arena.

:rotflmao: this

Ignignot•131 months

Thanks for the preview SOS......

Oh and we winning this bitch :geauxtigers:

LSUzealot•131 months

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STICKY REQ

guttata•131 months

I would imagine Langston Galloway has been looking foward to this for a long time.

LSUzealot•131 months

quote:
I would imagine Langston Galloway has been looking foward to this for a long time.

sorta like Hickey playing out of his mind vs Kentucky.

can't believe Trent didn't even recruit LG that hard :banghead:

SouthOfSouth•131 months

From what I've read on Langston, he had family up that way. I know LSU had offered. But still, I'd wanna play lights out if I was him.

He has had a very impressive start of the season. I expect it to continue.

Anyone else notice there aren't very many sub 6' players in this tournament? Looking at rosters I only saw a couple in the entire field.

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Brbengal•131 months

Thanks South.

Here's a St. Joe write up for the game:

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SouthOfSouth•131 months

For Saint Joseph's Im really interested to see Halil Kanacevic. Anyone who can average over 9 rebounds and over 7 assists per game is intriguing to me... He plays post but is a passer. Will be interesting to see how LSU guards him.

BigEdLSU•131 months

So ready to see this team in the spotlight at full strength

bbap•131 months

Whoa what a-hole used the retired toonces head?

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Britgirl•131 months

Thanks for this South.
I agree with your prediction 2-1, lose in final.
Just hope we don't have any lapses, for long stretches.
Last season it seemed like so often we were ahead, got behind, and had to fight for our lives in the last 5 minutes.
We've done a bit of that this year. Mostly because we haven't quite gelled yet, with all the new guys. Hope they've got it together for this tournament.
When we press (not IF), I'd like to see Shavon out there again.
Our press could be devastating, especially with our ball hawk Hickey (3rd in nation for steals, SEVEN steals last game).
Excited to see what product we put on the floor!

SouthOfSouth•131 months

Interesting to note that both Saint Joseph's and Memphis are senior heavy. Hoping our young guys can deal with the 3 games in 4 days situation and play smart.