'Tide Defensive Shift Kills LSU, 67-62 subject logo: COLSPORTS
2006-02-04
Posted by: badanov

Very good defensive game. Multiple lead changes and not a lot of offense. Ton 'o defense. We live for games like this.

At the moment, LSU has a hammerlock for first in the SEC West, and with this win Alabama is in sole possession of second place in the SEC West, two games behind LSU.

Both teams played pure man-to-man in the first half and the low score at the half, 37-35 Alabama, showed it.

As of this writing the AP hasn't posted its stories with the accompanying statistics, but what we do have is that each team held the other to less than 43 percent from the field. The difference for Alabama is they shot 58 percent to LSU's 43 percent from three point range.

The team leader for Alabama was sophomore Ronald Steele who scored 21 points, the lion's share coming from one of the toughest areas in college basketball: LSU's defense in the paint. Steele is a speedy forward, preferring to find the seams and drive through them to the paint for the score. Not a slashing forward like Texas' PJ Tucker, but with his speed, Steele doesn't need to be.

The big news for the Tide was the treys by freshman guard Jean Felix, who scored second best in the game 15 points, nine from three treys.

Apparently, in the second half, both teams switched to zone, but as Alabama started to crawl ahead, LSU switched to a man to man defense.

'Bama, on the other hand, switched to a hybrid defensive setup, with four in a box and one player, Ronald Steele, playing man to man to LSU's star senior guard Darrell Mitchell. The key was to shut down Mitchell who has been shooting a red-hot 48 percent from three point range.

The shift worked as Mitchell shot just 25 percent from the field and 20 percent from long range.

Alabama now at 13-8, 5-3 on conference play hosts Vanderbilt Feb. 8.

LSU is at 15-6, 7-1 in conference play, hosts Arkansas ( 14-6 3-4 conf.). Arkansas is tied with Ole Miss for third in the SEC. The Rebels are currently down as of this writing 23-12 at Tennessee at 11:00 left in the first half.

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