Tough road continues
LSU men visit No. 18 Miss. State
For the LSU men’s basketball team, it’s another road trip and another game against a ranked opponent.
The Tigers return to action at 7 p.m. Wednesday when they face 18th-ranked Mississippi State at Humphrey Coliseum, only four days removed from a 76-64 loss at No. 17 Florida.
Scheduled for a pair of back-to-back road sets in the first six games of Southeastern Conference play, LSU (12-7, 2-3) has won its only two SEC home games but is 0-3 on the road in the league.
Getting over the hump in Starkville, Miss., will be no easy chore.
State (16-4, 3-2) returns home riding high after beating Vanderbilt at Memorial Gymnasium in a 78-77 overtime thriller. Star newcomer Arnett Moultrie leads a lineup that features four scorers averaging double figures.
“They are very versatile and very balanced,” LSU coach Trent Johnson said.
The Tigers got some good news Tuesday as Johnny O’Bryant III practiced and is expected to be in uniform Wednesday.
O’Bryant had a CT scan Tuesday. He has not played since suffering a broken bone in his left hand two days before the Tigers opened SEC play.
The absence of O’Bryant, a McDonald’s All-American at East Side High in Cleveland, Miss., has coincided with LSU’s most challenging stretch of games.
By the end of the week, LSU will have faced three straight ranked opponents during regular-season action for the first time in eight years.
The Tigers on Saturday host No. 1 Kentucky, marking the first time the nation’s top team has visited Baton Rouge since LSU beat Arizona early in the 2002-03 season.
State entered coach Rick Stansbury’s 14th season with a solid nucleus led by point guard Dee Bost, who has started 109 career games, on the outside and talented big man Renardo Sidney on the inside. The addition of Moultrie, a UTEP transfer, has brought the Bulldogs to a different level.
Moultrie leads the conference in rebounding at 11.2 per game and ranks fourth in scoring average at 16.4 points. He is one of 25 finalists for the Wooden Award, given to the nation’s top player, despite not making the preseason watch list.
“There are a lot of guys in our sport that are athletic or great athletes,” Johnson said. “(Moultrie) is not only a great athlete, but also a great basketball player with skills.”
LSU counters with 7-foot junior Justin Hamilton, who scored 27 points on 13-of-22 shooting — even making his first career attempt from 3-point range — in Saturday’s loss at Florida.
During league play, Hamilton is averaging an SEC-best 19 points per game.
“Now he’s in a situation where he is going up against a different type of player,” Johnson said. “It is going to be interesting to see how he responds.”
As good as Hamilton has been, Johnson said the Tigers need to get him some help on the outside.
Sophomore guards Ralston Turner and Andre Stringer, the top two scorers on last year’s team, have combined to shoot 28.3 percent from the field during SEC action.
LSU has had to lean heavily on a defense that gives up only 61.5 points per game.
“What we are going to need for us to be effective and win games here, we are going to need our guys to start knocking down some shots and start making some plays,” Johnson said.
The Tigers can match last year’s SEC win total by earning a second straight win on State’s home court.
After suffering a heartbreaking 58-57 loss to the Bulldogs in Baton Rouge, LSU used an 84-82 upset at The Hump to salvage a season split.
The past three games in the series have been decided by a total of four points.