North Texas Head Coach Johnny Jones welcomes his former Alma Mater, LSU, to The Super Pit on Thursday.  Last year North Texas went to LSU and pulled off a stunner winning 75-55.  With almost all the seniors gone from that team can Jones pull his group of youngsters together and pull off an upset?

LSU is red-hot and sky-high after beating #10 Marquette. It was the first time LSU has beaten a ranked team since 2009 and they did it with their bench players which is senior laded.  

They are coming in and looking at one player not the North Texas team.  LSU Head Coach Trent Johnson stated “They have a special player that just became eligible named Tony Mitchell. He played with the US Olympic Team 19 and under. He's explosive as all get out.”  Apparently, he is overlooking the play of Chris Jones and Jordan Williams.

Last year LSU was a terrible team going 11-21, 3-13. So this year Johnson changed to a motion offense to make his team less predictable.

LSU, like North Texas, stumbled out of the blocks going 3-3 but now have up their record to 7-3. Two of their three losses have been on the road to Big South’s Coastal Carolina 63-71 and Big Ten’s Northwestern 82-88 and the loss at home was to Sun Belt’s South Alabama 75-79 in OT. They are on a four game winning streak and haven’t won five in a row since Dec. 2009. 

Defense has been the name of the game in the LSU wins. In their five straight victories they have held opponents to 60 points for less and kept opponents shooting below 44%.

They have a tenacity to stack the middle forcing outside shots and getting the rebounds. In two of their losses they were out rebounded by double digits and the other loss they only had two more rebounds than they opponent.  The other games they had the rebounding advantage.

Even when down by up to 20 points, opponents have been able to make runs at LSU and come away with a win. Five or six of the wins have come basically in the last minute or so of the game.

When Coastal Carolina used a 1-3-1 defense in their comeback win, it forced turnovers and bad shots.

The Tigers are 1-1 against Sun Belt schools, losing to South Alabama and winning against Western Kentucky 76-57.

LSU has three seniors, three juniors, three sophomores and four freshmen. As shown next the bulk of the work and playing time is done by the underclassmen. So they can be considered a young team.

Number 10 Andre Stringer, G, 5-9, 178, So., is their top scorer with 12.1 points a game. Right behind him is Iowa State transfer #41 Justin Hamilton , C, 7-0, 260, Jr., with 11.6, #22 Ralston Turner, G, 6-6, 205, So., at 10.9 and Anthony Hickey, G, 5-11, 182, Fr., with 10.1. Hickey is considered to be the top defender and is outstanding on fast break opportunities.

Turner is leading LSU in three point attempts with 60 attempts hitting 22. Hickey has tried 47 putting in 14 and Stringer has 40 attempts with 17 going in.

Hamilton is the top rebounder with 6.5 per game and #02 Johnny O’Bryant III, F, 6-9, 262, Fr., is second with 6.2 boards. He was a preseason selection as the best rebounder in the SEC. 

LSU is averaging 69.3 points a game and giving up 62.7.  The team is shooting .402 from the field hitting 267 of 665 attempts. Opponents have hit 243 of 613 attempts for a .396 shooting average. Although they are shooting .349 on three point shots it translates to six points a game while opponents are adding 6.2 points to their total on three point shots.

They out-rebound their opponents 2.2 a game and get 3.6 steals a game.

Here’s the bottom-line for a North Texas win. They have to make their shots. LSU is not going to give up a lot in the middle with a 7 and a 7.2 footer in there. They are going to try to force North Texas to shoot from outside the paint and grab the rebounds. North Texas has to make any open shots good on the first try because there may not be a lot of second chance opportunities. If North Texas can out-rebound LSU, they will open their chances for a win.

As pointed out, when LSU is out-rebounded and opponents get beyond 60 points the Tigers have a better chance of losing.  

For a lot of the players on both sides this will be an important career step. There will be a lot of NBA scouts looking for their next draft picks. No one can afford to make mistakes.

For the North Texas fans this is an important game for them, with some of the talent on the floor it will be like a NBA game, because some of the players will be moving up to the next level shortly.