BATON ROUGE, La. — Each and every game, CoachCal.com will talk with assistant coach John Robic about Kentucky’s plan of attack. Coach Robic is responsible for scouting the opposition. Without giving away too much of the game plan, Robic will tell us his keys to the game, an important matchup and who Kentucky has to watch for on the opposing team.

Assessing LSU

Robic: This is a team that’s probably playing better than a lot of people thought they would because they’re defending much better. They’re really active, plus they’ve added better pieces to the puzzle. You add Anthony Hickey at the point and you add Justin Hamilton in the post, that’s like in baseball adding a pitcher, shortstop and center fielder. You get better up the middle, you get better as a team. Hickey is an impressive player. He pushes the ball. He’s going to have extra incentive to play this game just because he’s from Kentucky. Hamilton is one of the better scoring post players in the SEC that we’ve seen on tape. He’s averaging about 14 points and eight rebounds and is the leading offensive rebounder in the SEC. Anytime you can add a point guard and a big, you’re going to get better. They were missing one of their big guys inside, Johnny O’Bryant, for a few games with an injury. He came back last game, the Mississippi State game. They’re a different team with him. That certainly gives you another big and an explosive athlete that rebounds the ball well and has the ability to step out on the floor and shoot jump shots.

CoachCal.com extras: Don’t let LSU’s 12-8 overall record (2-4 in the Southeastern Conference) fool you, this team is a lot better than the preseason predictions indicated. The Tigers, picked by the majority of analysts to finish near the bottom of the conference, put together a quality nonconference résumé, winning at Rutgers and defeating No. 10 Marquette at home. LSU hit a recent slide, losing four of its last five games, but four of those matchups were without O’Bryant, a McDonald’s All-American, who is averaging 7.8 points and 6.1 rebounds. UK has won of the five in the series, including an 82-44 rout in Rupp Arena last year. LSU is 3-12 all-time against top-ranked teams, including an overtime upset of Kentucky in 1978.

Offensive keys

1. Make the easy plays against pressure
2. Take advantage of athleticism in the paint

Robic: They’re pressuring the ball. Their guards are getting up in you. Hickey and Andre Stringer are really putting pressure on the ball. And then you have a shot blocker inside in Hamilton and they’re rebounding the ball better. They’ll show us both man to man and zone. We’ve got to get the ball into the middle of the court and really drive the basketball because our fours and fives, we think, can take them off the dribble.

CoachCal.com extras: Kentucky’s 57 points against Georgia were its fewest of the season. So was the 19 second-half points. Reason for concern? Most times not. But LSU thrives off low-scoring games. Of LSU’s 12 wins this season, the opponent has scored less than 60 points in 11 of them. In other words, those physical grind-it-out games, that’s exactly what LSU coach Trent Johnson will try to employ Saturday. Kentucky is one of the best shooting teams in the country, but the Cats have shot less than 50 percent from the floor in four of their last five games.

Defensive keys

1. Limit post touches
2. Get out on 3-point shooters

Robic: They run a very similar style to the team we played on Tuesday night, Georgia. Georgia coach Mark Fox worked for Trent Johnson at Nevada so there are a lot of similarities. Georgia seems to run a little bit more with more options, but the basic concepts are the same in what LSU does. They want to play a little bit faster than Georgia does. Defensively we have to do a good job in the post. This is a big kid (Hamilton) that we have to defend. We have to do a good job rebounding the ball because their four men are big with O’Bryant and Storm Warren and Malcolm White, so they can bring some size in. Transition defense is going to be important, not to let the little guards get all the way to the rim. And we have to get out on shooters. They’re going to shoot it from 25 feet, so we’ve really got to close out with our hands up and contest shots.

CoachCal.com extras: LSU doesn’t shoot the ball particularly well overall at 40.8 percent, but the Tigers do have great balance. Six players are averaging 7.8 points or more for LSU. Of those six players, three are guards and three are big men. Much has been made about  After allowing Alabama to shoot 48.0 percent last weekend, the highest percentage an opponent has posted against UK, the Cats returned to their stingy defensive ways in the game at Georgia, holding the Bulldogs to 34.5 percent. UK’s 36.2 field-goal defense percentage is No. 1 in the country. Kentucky will have a height advantage on the perimeter, as LSU’s Hickey and Stringer are 5-11 and 5-9, respectively, but LSU, at least physically, can match up with UK with Hamilton (7-0, 260 pounds), O’Bryant (6-9, 262), White (6-9, 220) and Warren (6-7, 230).

Players to watch for – Forward Justin Hamilton and guard Anthony Hickey

Robic: The Hamilton kid is very skilled. He’s big at 7 feet tall. It seems like he has good hands and good feet. He scores in a variety of ways. He can step out and shoot the jump shot out to 17, 18 feet. He’s an above average free-throw shooter. He ducks in hard and they run a lot of good things to get him the ball. We haven’t made the decision yet on who will go against him. At some point in time Anthony Davis will go up against him. He’ll have his work cut out for him, but we have to do a good job of swarming him. I’m not sure if we’re going to double him in the post or dig on him, but he has to see multiple people every time he touches ball. Hickey has deep range on his shot, puts pressure on the defense because of his speed, gets to the rim, is going to keep you honest with the 3. We’re going to have to do a good job of keeping him in front and keeping our hands up. We may guard him with some size because he’s smaller. We’ve got to keep him out of paint.

CoachCal.com extras: Hamilton is the team’s leading scorer (13.9), rebounder (7.4) and shot blocker (1.5). At 260 pounds, he’s more than just tall. His frame could create problems for the much skinnier Davis. Meanwhile, Hickey, a freshman, is averaging 10.0 points and 4.0 assists per game. But that’s only half the story. As a Hopkinsville, Ky., native, Hickey wanted to play for Kentucky but never received a scholarship offer because Marquis Teague was already in the fold. Will that be extra motivation for Hickey on Saturday?

X-factor – Miller time

Robic: Darius Miller was aggressive last game. Now he shot the heck out of the ball and made all his 3s, but he was aggressive. He was ready to shoot the ball and he was a spark we obviously needed. He hit some big shots. He can be a matchup headache for opponents because of his size, but he needs to have that tenacity on both ends of the floor. If he can do that, he makes us that much better.

CoachCal.com extras: Miller scored a season-high-tying 19 points against Georgia, hitting 7-of-8 shots, including all four of his 3-point attempts. He’s scored in double figures in three straight games and is now averaging 10.3 points on the season. With Miller now in double figures, UK has six players averaging 10 or more points. No team in UK history has finished a season with six players in double figures.

Team stats and rankings

(national rankings in parentheses)

Stat leaders