Reverse course

LSU and Texas A&M, who both got off to hot starts, were trending in the wrong direction as conference play trickled over the halfway point on Saturday.

One of the two struggling teams will be feeling better soon as they meet at Texas A&M’s Reed Arena tonight at 6 (SEC Network).

The Aggies’ 70-66 home loss to Missouri on Saturday was the sixth in a row for Coach Buzz Williams’ crew, which had an eight-game winning streak snapped by Kentucky on Jan. 19. Texas A&M had won 11 of 12 games prior to that, but haven’t celebrated a victory since then, with consecutive losses at Arkansas (76-73, OT), at LSU (70-64), vs. South Carolina (74-63), at Tennessee (90-80) and against Missouri.

LSU had a lackluster first-half showing in a 7566 loss at Vanderbilt on Saturday, the Tigers’ sixth loss in their last seven games.

LSU was 15-1, including impressive league wins over Kentucky, Tennessee and at Florida, prior to its 6558 home loss to Arkansas on Jan. 15. Since then, the Tigers have fallen at Alabama (70-67), Tennessee (64-50), TCU (77-68) and Vandy, and split home games against Texas A&M and Ole Miss, which edged them 76-72 at the Maravich Center.

LSU has trailed Ole Miss by 24 points and Vanderbilt by 21 points in its last two games before staging unsuccessful rallies.

Xavier Pinson’s sprained knee has cost the Tigers a valuable ball handler and distributor in recent weeks, but there are more issues than that. LSU allowed 11 three-pointers by Vandy’s Rodney Chatman and Myles Stute, whose shooting ranges were circled on the scouting report.

“Health-related, attention to detail … there’s different issues on different things,” LSU Coach Will Wade said. “Some of it’s health, but we can’t blame it all on that. Everybody’s got some issues.

“We don’t follow the details on the scouting report. We give up 11 threes to two of their best shooters. That’s a detail issue.”