HONOLULU — A dominating first-half performance put LSU in its first tournament final in 11 years with a 103-86 thrashing of Wyoming Saturday night in the championship semifinals of the Sports Tours International Honolulu Thanksgiving Shootout.
The win puts the 4-0 Tigers into the championship game Sunday at 7:30 p.m. CST against Fresno State, a 100-90 winner over Southwest Missouri State in the other championship semifinal. That game will be broadcast on the LSU Sports Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) beginning at 7 p.m.
The Tigers last advanced to a regular season tournament championship in December 1988 when LSU won three games to capture the Chaminade Invitational in Honolulu.
The win proved to be even more impressive, considering Wyoming returned all five starters from a team which advanced to the second round of the NIT a season ago and was 10th in the nation in scoring last year, averaging 81.6 points per game.
While LSU sophomore Stromile Swift dominated the Cowboys with a career-high 33 points and 13 rebounds, it was the overall performance of LSU in a foul-plagued contest that spelled the difference in one of the strongest performances the Tigers have recorded in several years.
In the first 20 minutes, LSU hit 19-of-30 shots, including nine layups and two three-pointers, and 16-of-22 free throws. At the half, the Tigers had dominated Wyoming on the boards, 26-11, a margin that would eventually end up 46-38 at the end of the game, after the Cowboys made a late spurt on the boards in the closing minutes.
“In the first half we were able to score almost when we wanted to,” said LSU coach John Brady. “I thought Stromile Swift was phenomenal. If he can continue to play like that, we can be pretty good. Brian Beshara played well. I thought Torris Bright played pretty well. We got into foul trouble and we had to make some adjustments in our personnel. But again our guys played pretty well and we adjusted pretty well to what are responsibilities were, particular defensively.”
Swift, who had 21 points in the Friday win over Oakland, had to take over early when center Jabari Smith found himself in early foul trouble, picking up two quick fouls in the first four minutes. That would set the tone for the first half as 27 fouls were called and the teams shot a combined 39 free throws.
LSU jumped out 4-0 and controlled the lead for some five minutes before Wyoming would take a 12-11 advantage on a three-pointer by Bradley Mann. That would be the first of nine lead changes in the first 14 minutes of the half. After the Wyoming lead, Swift scored seven straight LSU points as he matched Wyoming center Ugo Udezue bucket for bucket.
Back-to-back three-pointers by Brett McFall and Anthony Blakes gave Wyoming its biggest lead of 26-22 with 8:49 to go in the half, but LSU would tie it on a dunk by Smith at 27-27. On the play, one official called a foul against Wyoming, but another official called a technical for hanging on the rim, giving Smith his third foul and sent him to the bench with 8:01 to play in the half.
But the technical seemed to inspire LSU as it held Wyoming to just 11 points the rest of the way, while scoring 28. LSU’s defense allowed just two field goals in the final 8:01 of the half as the Tigers went to the dressing room, up 56-39.
“We just came out and tried to play hard and really play some tough defense,” said Swift. “That’s how we were able to come out and open up the lead. I just got motivated off Jabari (Smith). They made a couple of bad calls on him and that motivated me. I was able to go in there and do a couple of things on the post and score.”
“We were ready to play,” said Brady. “This was the best team we had faced to date. We knew Wyoming had 18 wins a year ago and five starters back. We were ready and I think it showed, especially defensively for a stretch and then offensively for a half we were pretty good. When you can play good quality defense and you can run efficient offense on the end, your team can look like it is playing some really good basketball and for about a 14-15 minute stretch we did about as well as we could do.”
Three other LSU players ended up in double figures with Jabari Smith getting 17 points in just 16 minutes, with Beshara and Bright adding 14 each. Marcus Bailey off the bench had 18 to pace 3-1 Wyoming with Anthony Blakes getting 16, Udezue 13 and Antone Lostetter 10. Wyoming meets Southwest Missouri State in the third-place game.
“I thought we were ready to play,” said Bright, who had a team-high six assists to go with his double-figure scoring. “Our coaches told us we had to pick up the defense that this would be the best defensive team we played. We wanted to show them that we deserve to be where they were last year.”
The second half was more of the same thing as LSU continued to score on one end and shut Wyoming down on the other, opening up a 28-point, 72-44 lead with 13:40 to go. From there, the two teams shuffled players in and out of the lineup with Wyoming playing mostly reserves in the final 10 minutes. The Tigers biggest lead was 29 points, 93-64, with 4:11 to play before Wyoming made a mild rally at the end of the game for the final margin.
All 13 players on the LSU roster played and 11 scored.
“Now, we’re looking forward to the challenge of playing Fresno State Sunday,” said Brady. “They are a top 20 team and we are looking forward to that opportunity.”
In two games, Swift has put up possible tournament MVP numbers, scoring 54 points, grabbing 21 rebounds, while making 21-of-27 field goal attempts.