By Fred J. Demarest LSU Sports Information
Darryl Cooper wipes the sweat off his brow, then glances up at the clock and sees 0.1 seconds remaining in the game. The Tigers are tied with Alabama and the freshman point guard has two free throws. If he hits one the Tigers win. He’s only 1-4 from the line to this point tonight. He takes a deep breath and lets it fly, as over 9,000 fans anxiously await the outcome. As the ball seemingly hangs in the air forever, it finally drops through the goal. LSU 71, Alabama 70. The Tigers have just won the kind of game they routinely let slip away in previous years. And Darryl Cooper has just sent another big PMAC crowd into a frenzy.
It seems as if this kind of drama is becoming commonplace once again at the PMAC. In an 11-day stretch, the Tigers played three of their more thrilling home games in recent years, with a combined total of only nine points separating victory from defeat in those games, making it the most competitive three-game stretch at the PMAC since 1988. While the Tigers fell to Arkansas (80-75) and Auburn (73-70) in the first two games, their victory over Alabama came at a time in which they could have easily come out flat after losing to Auburn four days earlier.
From Maurice Carter dropping 35 points on Arkansas to the Tigers nearly pulling a huge upset against previously unbeaten Auburn to Cooper’s last second heroics, these have been the kind of high-energy, competitive basketball games that people talk about for years. And the kind of competitive basketball games that the PMAC hasn’t witnessed in years.
Even in going 1-2 in that three-game stretch, no Tiger fan could have possibly walked out of the PMAC feeling cheated. Go two weeks further back and the Tigers picked up a dramatic 63-61 overtime victory against another solid opponent, Texas. More and more fans are rediscovering the energy and excitement of basketball at LSU every single week. More and more Tiger fans are discovering all of a sudden that this is a wonderful time to be an LSU basketball fan.
“This is what I expected when I came here as a freshman,” says senior Maurice Carter. “I always imagined big crowds, excitement and enthusiasm with our fans and with our team. We’ve got a great coaching staff and an exciting young team and I’m just glad to finally be a part of something like this.”
A year ago the Tigers’ biggest crowd of the season was 8,686 against Kentucky. The Tigers have already surpassed the 9,000 fan mark on three occasions this season. More than that, however, is the voice that comes with those fans. Tiger fans have truly become a factor in the game for the first time since the days of Shaquille O’Neal and the successful Tiger teams of the early 1990s.
“I believe that when this building is full, there is not a better place in college basketball to play,” says LSU head coach John Brady. “There are some good buildings out there, but the atmosphere that can be created when this building is full is as good as it gets in college basketball and I don’t know of any successful college program that doesn’t thrive off the support of its fans.”
The resurgence of LSU basketball is occurring for many reasons. This is a scrappy, hard working team that simply won’t quit, engineered by a coach that gives fans little choice but to believe that this team is headed in the right direction. Another appealing aspect of this Tiger team is that they have 11 players in either their freshmen or sophomore season making them the fifth youngest team in the nation. Tiger fans will grow with this team and see them improve, mature and develop into something big.
“Tiger fans are going to get to know these young men through the next few years,” says Brady. “Hopefully our fans will leave the building liking what they just saw and hopefully they will identify with the intensity that this team shows.
“Let’s be honest, our fans pay good money to come see us play. If we can make them feel good about what they’re seeing, and on top of that start to win some big games, which will come, then we will have something very special here at LSU.”
There already is something special here at LSU.
John Brady and his young team have brought the excitement back into basketball at LSU. The PMAC hasn’t been referred to as the “Deaf Dome” by opponents in years. In recent weeks, however, it has become deafening once again. Brady and this Tiger team have brought an aura of respectability back to this program and feeling that LSU is capable of competing with any SEC team that steps into the PMAC on any given night. Not only will great games like Arkansas, Auburn and Alabama be the norm in years to come, eventually, so too will big wins.