Matt McMahon criticizes team's first half vs Wake Forest, breaks down reasons for comeback

It was the Tale of Two Halves for LSU against Wake Forest. The Tigers sunk to a 20-point deficit to the Demon Deacons and needed a massive second half rally in order to come back and steal the victory. According to Tigers head coach Matt McMahon, the key to the turnaround was getting better looks from inside the arc.

“I think the reason for the struggles there the first 16 minutes is really poor shot selection,” he shared in the postgame presser. “And we were in 9-26 from two point range in the first half, right around 34%. A lot of them were really difficult low percentage shots. We missed a couple easy ones at the rim, but for the most part, I thought selection was poor. And then from that point forward we shot 65% from two. So I thought our shot quality was a lot better.”

McMahon also stressed the importance of taking care of the ball, which LSU did vs. Wake in order to win the battle on points off turnovers.

“And we’ve been talking about the turnovers being something we wanted to clean up. And you look at the game, we had 17 assists but only seven turnovers. Went from turning the ball over about 20% of our possessions to only 10%. And then the flip side of that — defensively, we were able to force 15 turnovers. You look at the final stats, you know we were 21 to 11 on points off turnovers. So I thought that was an area we really wanted to improve, and was excited to see that happen on Saturday.”

The LSU coach then laid out his three-point plan for executing a comeback after falling in such a hole.

“Three things. No. 1: Not turning the ball over. No. 2: Improve shot selection the final 24 minutes of the game. And then No. 3: Just more ball movement and better screening. We still have a long way to go there but I thought, over the last 24 minutes of the game, a lot better passing and ball movement, sharing of the ball. Which leads to higher percentage shots. I mean, we’re not trying to reinvent the game here. It’s pretty simple.”

McMahon went on to point out a few areas where the Tigers struggled. However, he noted the team came up with huge complementary hustle plays to negate some of their miscues. Just finding ways to win, which any head coach loves to see.

“That’s how you end up 17 assists and seven turnovers, which means you’re probably getting some high quality looks. 10-26 from three at 39%, that’s a high quality number. You know, we were pathetic at the free-throw line, 6-15. But an area we have not been great this year is offensive rebounding. And we got three offensive rebounds on those missed free throws that led to two layups, a wide open three and another foul drawn. So I thought those extra effort plays on the free throw box outs were huge. Cam Hayes getting the layup there at the halftime buzzer on a free throw offensive rebound. And then Derek Fountain, late in the second half, had an offensive rebound put-back. Just huge plays.”