Scooter Hobbs

The really good LSU basketball teams generally make it a point to beat Kentucky.

More on that in a moment.

But it’s sort of a tradition, a measuring stick to take care of on the way to bigger things.

This edition probably isn’t one of those really good teams, although it thought it was at least in the thick of the Southeastern Conference race before Alabama went to Baton Rouge Tuesday night.

You would have thought it was football.

It was even billed as a showdown between two of the hottest SEC teams, LSU at 5-1 in the conference, Bama at 6-0.

Instead — false alarm — it was just an extension of the LSU-Alabama football game.

Get hopes up. See them dashed by reality.

Still, this was basketball, not football.

Will Wade’s LSU teams have never hung any hat on defense, particularly when stopping the long ball.

But Tuesday’s 105-75 not-as-close-as-the-score loss was a little over the top — mostly way over the top from way out yonder.

Sound familiar? Just a smooth transition from football to basketball. Throw it long against LSU and good things will happen.

Six minutes into the game the Tide led 27-6 after making 9 of their first 10 shots — all on 3-pointers — from deep, deep and even deeper.

It couldn’t have been all LSU’s fault — nobody should make 9 of 10 from beyond the arc against the thinnest air.

It could’ve been worse, but the Tigers defense didn’t really get close enough to foul anybody.

That sounds a lot like the LSU secondary’s handiwork, but Bo Pelini has long since been fired and was nowhere in the Maravich Assembly Center.

The Tide eventually set an SEC record with 23 3-pointers, none, oddly enough, by Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith.

It was like more watching the football season open against Mississippi State, which broke the SEC record for passing yards against DBU.

And it could have been worse.

Just past the 10-minute mark of the first half, the Tide was on pace to score 152 points.

“We’re not as bad as we were last night,” Wade told a Baton Rouge TV station the next day. “We’re somewhere in the middle. But we don’t need to let what happened last night beat us multiple times.”

A quick check of SEC protocols reveals that it only counted as one (1) loss.

Also, that Alabama thrives during the COVID. The Tide, now 7-0 in conference hoops, hasn’t lost an SEC football or basketball game since the whole mess began. It’s a combined 18-0.

Meanwhile, LSU will have to pick up the pieces of what it hopes will be the low point of the year, recapture the momentum it had previously.

Which doesn’t seem like a good time to catch Kentucky, as the Tigers will Saturday with a trip to Lexington.

Oh, but this just in: This is the year to go play Kentucky, even to venture into Rupp Arena,

In fact, if you aren’t feasting on the Wildcats this season you’re one of the few missing out on the fun, maybe a lifetime opportunity.

Need more proof that the pandemic has sent the sports world careening off the rails?

Here’s the latest new normal from the hoops division: The most recent Associated Press Top 25 basketball poll had nary a mention of Kentucky, North Carolina or — are you sitting down? — Duke.

According to the AP, the last time that happened was 1961.

Nothing really looked amiss for Kentucky at the season’s start, the usual array of expected freshmen one-and-dones ready to get better and better as the season goes a long.

Apparently it’s not fool-proof.

The Wildcats’ 1-6 season start — this was before conference play began — was its worst since 1921, back when the only bourbon in the state was bootlegged.

Things seemed to settle down and get back to Big Blue normal after a 3-0 start to conference. But the Tigers will find the Wildcats on a three-game losing streak (4-9, 3-3) after failing to protect a late six-point lead and losing at the buzzer to Georgia Wednesday.

That’s not any kind of normal.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.comScooter Hobbs (American Press)