First Scouting Report: Can Kentucky take down Will Wade and LSU in Baton Rouge?
An early look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next men’s basketball game:
The opponent
No. 18 Kentucky (11-2, 1-0 SEC) will open Southeastern Conference road play at No. 16 LSU (12-1, 0-1 SEC) Tuesday, Jan. 4, at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center (capacity 13,215) on the campus of Louisiana State University:
The game will tip off at 7 p.m. (EST) and be telecast by ESPN.
Coach Will Wade’s Tigers lost their first SEC game of the season Wednesday night, a 70-55 defeat at No. 11 Auburn.
Series history
Kentucky leads the all-time series with LSU 91-27 and has won five of the past six contests.
Most recent meeting
Brandon Boston had 18 points, six rebounds and three assists and Keion Brooks chipped in 15 points and nine rebounds to pace Kentucky to an 82-69 victory over LSU on Jan. 23, 2021, in Rupp Arena.
Power rankings
Through Wednesday’s games, the NCAA’s NET Rankings had Kentucky No. 22 and LSU No. 5.
The Kenpom Rankings rated UK No. 10 and LSU No. 13.
Kentucky stood No. 15 in the Sagarin Ratings with LSU No. 8.
Know your foe
1. Since becoming LSU head man in 2017-18, Will Wade has gone 1-3 vs. Kentucky. The one Tigers win was costly, however, as LSU’s 73-71 victory over UK on a last-second tip-in by Kavell Bigby-Williams in Rupp Arena on Feb. 12, 2019, ultimately gave the Bayou Bengals the SEC regular-season championship by one game over Kentucky and Tennessee.
As Kentucky coach, John Calipari is 13-3 vs. LSU.
The Tigers and Wildcats will play twice in the regular season this year, with the rematch coming Feb. 23 in Lexington.
2. LSU has three power-conference victories, having beaten Penn State of the Big Ten (68-63 in overtime) and Wake Forest of the ACC (75-61) on a neutral court in Niceville, Fla., and bested the ACC’s Georgia Tech 69-53 in the Holiday Hoopsgiving event at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
3. Horrid shooting did LSU in during its loss at Auburn. The visitors made only 28.6 percent of their field-goal tries (18-of-63) and 20.7 percent (6-of-29) of their three-point attempts.
LSU is not a great shooting team overall, making 44.8 percent of its shots on the season, 31 percent on three-pointers.
Senior forward Darius Days (14.7 ppg, 8 rpg), freshman center Efton Reid (9.2 ppg, 5.8 rpg) and Missouri transfer guard Xavier Pinson (8.7 ppg, 3.1 rpg, team-high 58 assists) are the Tigers’ top players.
This story was originally published December 31, 2021 at 2:09 PM.
