Point of contention
Published 6:00 pm Friday, March 29, 2019
Little guards likely to determine outcome of inside-out game
WASHINGTON — It may be hard to spot them at first among the typical tall timber in the NCAA basketball tournament.
But the two smallest guys on the court at Capital One Arena tonight might just decide the Sweet 16 matchup between No. 3 seed LSU and No. 2 Michigan State.
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The Tigers (28-6) will start 2 inches down against the Spartans (30-6).
But Tremont Waters’ 5-foot-11 frame has never bothered him before as the undisputed engine that makes the Tigers go, first-team all-Southeastern Conference and the league’s co-defensive player of the year while also leading the Tigers in scoring.
He’ll be looking up at Michigan State’s Big Ten Player of the Year Cassius Winston, who’s 6-1, in what could be one of the best point guard matchups in the entire tournament.
“I’m looking forward to that,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. “Waters is heck of a player. He’s jet-quick. They’re similar in some ways.”
Izzo compared it to a perfect Super Bowl with two great quarterbacks.
“Tremont is a gamer,” LSU interim head coach Tony Benford said. “I think the bigger the stage, you see him take his game to another level.”
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The stage doesn’t get much bigger.
Tonight’s winner advances to Sunday’s Elite Eight to play the winner of tonight’s Duke-Virginia Tech game with a spot in the Final Four on the line.
The scrum in the paint won’t be much different than the all-out war LSU fought with Maryland last Saturday in the second round to get to the nation’s capital.
LSU’s Naz Reid and Kavell Bigby-Williams will have their hands full, this time with the Spartans’ Kenny Goins and Xavier Tillman.
“I’d love watching them if I didn’t have to play them,” Izzo said of LSU. “They go at it with a vengeance.”
But the sexy matchup will be outside with the guys orchestrating the shows.
“He’s an extension of our coaching staff on the floor,” Benford said of Waters, who hit the leaning buzzer-beater that beat Maryland 69-67 to get here.
Izzo gives Winston a slight edge on outside shooting — 40 percent from 3-point range while leading the Spartans with 18.0 points per game — while “Waters is a little more disruptive defensively.”
Both principals downplayed any sort of head-to-head matchup, however, and both coaches pointed out that the point guards won’t be guarding each other exclusively.
Is it personal?
“I take every game personal,” Waters said. “It’s a team sport, so I don’t necessarily get into matchups and everything that goes into that. That’s for everybody else to evaluate. I go in knowing I have to run my team.
“He (Winston) is a great point guard. He controls their offense. But my job is to go out and run my team and do what I have to do to help us win.”
“I don’t get into individual battles,” said Winston, who remembered Waters from their AAU days but never played against him. “We both do a lot for our teams. If we’re playing our best, then usually our team is playing its best.”
At least the Tigers shouldn’t have to worry about a zone defense, which Maryland used in the second half last week to turn an LSU joy ride into a white-knuckler.
Izzo said he doesn’t believe in the ploy, no matter how tempting it might be after watching tape of the Tigers.
“Zone isn’t really our MO,” Michigan State forward Nick Ward said. “We press up. We do our principles.”
“I don’t think it’s time to throw away our principles now,” Winston said.
Washington Michigan St. vs. LSU, 6:09 p.m. CBS
