Welcome everyone to another edition of #3OT where I break down what went right and what went wrong for the Tigers! In this edition, I look at LSU’s loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores.
1st OT: Solid Shooting From Beyond
The biggest positive that the LSU Tigers can take from this loss is that their shooting from beyond the arc was a lot better than it had been in recent games. You had freshman Skylar Mays and Wayde Sims went for a combined 7-of-9 from three point range and the team tied the record with 17 total made threes. It’s a good sign that this team can get things done from beyond the arc, but their shooting from inside was few and far between with the Tigers going 14-of-26. This team needs to show more effort inside and it was clear that the Tigers were living and dying by the three ball.
2nd OT: Poor Start to Second Half Cost Tigers
LSU had every chance to get back in this game as they were able to make it a three point contest at the half with a 15-4 run in the final minutes. However, they came out of the locker room lackadaisical and couldn’t get any momentum going which worked into Vanderbilt’s favor on Thursday night. There’s really no excuse for that happening and it falls solely on head coach Johnny Jones.
3rd OT: Turnover Machine
Another big reason why Vanderbilt ran away with this game was because of the fact that the Tigers couldn’t hold onto the ball. Once the night ended, LSU had 15 turnovers, 10 of which came from Brandon Sampson and Duop Reath. What made this worse was that the Commodores were able to get 30 points off of those turnovers. That’s almost a third of their points coming off of mistakes from the Tigers. LSU may have been stellar from behind the three-point line, but every other aspect of their game was absolutely poor.
-Clint Domingue