Kinsley steps up as LSU guards battle injuries

• By GARY LANEY
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Dec 1, 2009 - Page: 6C

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

It’s a good thing for the LSU men’s basketball team’s injury-riddled guards that Louisiana-Lafayette, the Tigers’ last opponent before final exams, gives a more conventional look than Arizona State in the last game of the NIT Season Tip-Off last week.

In that game, every available LSU guard with a scholarship and/or previous experience started against ASU’s perimeter-oriented lineup. All three — sophomore point guard Chris Bass, freshman Aaron Dotson and sophomore walk-on Zach Kinsley — played major minutes.

They’ll have to be ready to do it again today when the Tigers (3-2) host the Cajuns (1-3) in a 6:30 p.m. game at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

“We have 12 guys on the floor and 12 guys are going to play,” LSU coach Trent Johnson said. “You have Bo (Spencer), you have Chris Bass, you have Aaron (Dotson), you have Zach Kinsley and you have Chris Beattie and those guys are going to have to be ready to play.”

Sounds simple, except Spencer, the Tigers’ starting point guard, is nursing a sprained ankle that held him out of the Arizona State game.

Whether Spencer plays today will be a game-day decision.

“I don’t know if he’s going to play,” Johnson said. “Obviously, we are in a situation where (today) in the shoot-around, if he shows he has the ability to pass and cut to my liking and to (trainer) Shawn Eddy and our medical people, yes, he’ll play. But right now, he’s got his hands full with some academics and he has his hands full with his ankle.”

If he can’t go, Beattie, a first-year junior walk-on from Pope John Paul High II in Slidell, becomes the fourth guard in the Tigers rotation.

But at least ULL isn’t the same kind of team Arizona State, which handed LSU a 71-52 defeat in the NIT’s consolation game, was. Unlike most mid-majors, the Cajuns have a big lineup with four starters 6-foot-7 or taller, which makes Johnson comfortable to go back to a normal lineup that will include forward Tasmin Mitchell returning to his small forward spot instead of power forward, where he moved to match-up with perimeter-oriented ASU forward Rihards Kuksiks.

That created the opening for Kinsley in the starting lineup. A second-year walk-on from St. Michael responded with 14 points, including three 3-pointers.

“I knew I was going to play more minutes than last year,” Kinsley said. “But my dream was to start, and it is unbelievable.”

Kinsley found himself not only as an unlikely starter, but also playing roles that did not fit the premise that he was a walk-on playing only because he had to.

On offense, Kinsley found himself the best 3-point shooter on the floor for the Tigers, particularly with Spencer out, and was encouraged to pull the trigger when he was open.