UK takes on LSU at 4:00 today in Baton Rouge. The Tigers aren’t exactly a powerhouse this year, but they do hold a good win over Marquette from December. Aside from that victory, Trent Johnson’s bunch doesn’t have many marquee wins, but they do possess a lot of athleticism. When they play well they are a pretty good team. The problem for them is they haven’t played well all that often this season.

LSU only averages 67.2 PPG (197th), whereas UK averages 78.4 (20th). Another glaring discrepancy is LSU’s FG pct is .408 (289th) and UK’s is .483 (20th again).

An interesting note though is LSU’s PG and leader in assists, Anthony Hickey. Hickey was Kentucky’s Mr. Basketball last year. He wanted to come to UK, but was not offered a scholarship. Instead UK gave those to Twany Beckham and Jarrod Polson… It will be interesting to see if he comes out with a purpose to show UK what they missed out on. Here is a quote from Cal on Hickey,

On recruiting in-state product Anthony Hickey … “It’s not about that, he’s good enough, there is no question but we took Marquis Teague. When you do that, unless you just want to load up on kids, here’s what happens, what if he comes here, maybe he is better than Marquis, maybe he’s not, and if he’s not and he’s not playing, is that fair to him? Maybe he would be good enough to beat out Marquis Teague, is that fair to Marquis Teague? I just think that when you go through this process of recruiting, I’ve made mistakes before. I remember when we played Connecticut and when I saw my man out of high school, I said he was too small, I’m not sure he is good enough. Guess what, he was good enough. Hickey is really good. I’ll same the thing, the other side of it is you take a guy that should be going to Western (Kentucky University) or Murray (State) and you just take him to take him when he could go there and be a starter and do x-y-z and you take him because you want to have a Kentucky kid on your team. I’m not doing that, I just refuse to do that. I’ll take walk-ons that way but I’m not taking a player that way, I don’t feel comfortable with that. Hickey is good enough, he is an SEC player and a starting point guard, I just saw him against Mississippi State make four 3s in a row to end the game. He’s not afraid, he could play here, there isn’t any question, he’s not afraid, he’s a battler, he is good

Marquis Teague seems to have heard of him as well,

On (LSU guard and former Kentucky Mr. Basketball) Anthony Hickey, if he’s heard about him and if he expects him to come out hungry tomorrow playing against his home state… “Yeah, this is his home state, so we expect him to come out and compete. I heard he’s been doing very well this year, so he’s a really good player. I had a chance to see him in the Indiana All-Star game, so (I’m) just ready to go down and play.”

On what he remembers from his previous matchup with Anthony Hickey …  “He’s a good guard, he’s real quick, good with the ball, can shoot the outside shot. He’s just a true point guard.”

The Cats know what to expect today, and will need to come out firing to take LSU out of it early. LSU often holds opponents under 60, which the Cats failed to score for the first time all season yesterday. Furthermore, Cal said LSU’s system is similar to Georgia’s (the team that held UK to under 60). We will leave you with the quote from Cal on LSU’s defense and holding teams to under 60 points.

On LSU holding teams under 60… “They’re big and their guards are good. (Anthony) Hickey is outstanding, tough, hard-nosed, they have two of him. They have their leading scorer, who is 6-5, back. Johnny O’Bryant who is a McDonald’s All-American, they have the kid from Iowa State that is 7-foot, he’s good. They have two other big kids; they are a very good team. The good news is, for preparation, they play a lot like Georgia, Mark (Fox) worked for coach (LSU head coach Trent Johnson). A lot of the stuff when we go over it we will have seen it. That’s why yesterday I didn’t use any time in our practice, usually I would say let’s hit their stuff a little bit, we did a few of the drills that match it but none of the walkthrough stuff.”

Go Cats