Jacob Toppin had 13 points in the first half at LSU but only one in the second half. (UK Athletics Photo)
LSU probably could have presented a game ball to Kentucky assistant coach Chin Coleman after its 65-60 win because his pregame remarks obviously resonated with the Tigers based on an article by Sheldon Mickles in the Baton Rouge Advocate about the game.
Coleman said Monday it was “questionable” how good LSU was defensively and that UK was going to attack “as soon as we get off the bus.” In fairness, no way Coleman could have told Sahvir Wheeler would go out with an injury less than four minutes into the game, Oscar Tshiebwe would spend half of the first half on the bench in foul trouble, or TyTy Washington would have leg cramp issues the final nine minutes.
Still, UK looked nothing like the highest-scoring team in the SEC and had long droughts where no player — or only one player (Jacob Toppin) in the first half — could score.
The Tigers rank first nationally out of 358 Division I teams in Ken Pomeroy’s metrics for adjusted defensive efficiency. In the last 13 minutes, Kentucky missed 10 of 13 shots and had a 6 minute, 20-second scoring drought that let LSU wipe out a nine-point UK lead and build its own nine-point lead.
“A lot of teams, they like to ‘junk’ it up. It’s questionable how good they really are defensively,” Coleman said Monday. “That’s why they play so much junk stuff, they don’t trust any one thing defensively.”
Whatever No. 21 LSU did, it worked. And Mickles noted that Wade mentioned early in his postgame press conference about LSU’s “junk” defense after UK made six 3-pointers in seven minutes to open the second half. That gave UK a 50-41 lead.
“I thought about changing to some of our junk defenses when they hit all those 3’s,” Wade said. “But I knew from their press conference they were prepared for the junk defenses based on what their assistant said. So we just had to settle in with our man (to man defense), be a little bit more aggressive in our man.”
Translation: Wade was going to do what he wanted and what he knew UK was or was not expecting.
Maybe Kentucky wasn’t expecting quite the rousing crowd the Tigers had, either.
“I kind of felt like the roof was going to come off at the end when we dunked that thing. I thought the crowd was great,” the LSU coach said.
Wade has now won two of five meetings with Calipari/Kentucky and knew this one was due to the defense.
“Our guys have been locked in, our guys have been focused. That’s important for us, so we’ve got to keep that up,” Wade said after the game. “You know, not everybody’s a believer in our defense yet.”
However, I am guessing that Chin Coleman is a bigger believer in the LSU defense today than he was Monday.
8 Responses
BS – The LSU defense was adequate for who they played, a team decimated with key injuries. But, healthy, LSU would have been exposed. Coach Chin was correct in his statements.
The kids play. The kids should have been proud of Chin and worked their hardest to have his back as he had theirs. They should be glad they got the best LSU had to make them better. Wait and see, they’ll grow from LSU and for their respect for Coach Chin.
i believe that what everyone said after the Notre Dame loss.
LSU will lose their next game. Mark it down. Emotional high to emotional low.
I think it’s unusual for a coach to give the opponent bulletin board material.
The entire UK team ran their mouth to much before that game. "Roadkill" Right.
I believe LSU has the best defense in the country, and they demonstrated it Tuesday night. The LSU offense is their Achilles heel, and their 65 points in 72 possessions is nothing to write home about.
As for their next game, it is against a strong Tennessee team in Baton Rouge, and I would expect another game in the 60s decided by less than 2 possessions either way.
Coleman was unprofessional and I hope Cal had a talk with him. UK is a long way from getting cocky. Put your play on the court not your mouth!