BATON ROUGE — The LSU Tigers ran their record to 8-0 with an 85-67 triumph over Sam Houston State University Saturday afternoon at the Maravich Assembly Center.
The win continues a season-opening streak of victories which is the longest since the Tigers opened with 14 straight wins to open the 1985-86 campaign.
LSU put the game away early for all intents and purposes, coming out with a purpose against a Bearkat team which was 5-2 and coming off a 17-point road win at Baylor in its last start. With the game tied at 4-4, LSU scored 12 straight points and outscored Sam Houston State 28-4 to take a 32-8 lead with 6:10 to go in the first half.
“I thought the first 15 minutes of this game was the best start we’ve had this season,” said LSU Coach John Brady. “Our team was good (Saturday) and the stats showed. I thought Stromile (Swift), Brian (Beshara) and Jabari (Smith) came out and set a good tempo for the game tonight and now we are ready to go to Shreveport.”
LSU plays next on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at Hirsch Coliseum in Shreveport against Centenary College. The game will be a home contest for LSU.
Swift was the scoring star for the Tigers hitting 23 points with 12 rebounds and five blocked shots in 30 minutes. Jabari Smith, after failing to score Tuesday against Tennessee-Martin, got his game back on track, scoring 17 points with nine boards in 24 minutes. Lamont Roland had 15 points and six assists and Brian Beshara hit three-treys in a 13-point, three-assist effort.
Jeremy Burkhalter had 24 points to pace Sam Houston with Boney Watson adding 18. Down 43-23 at the half, Sam Houston stayed in the game in the second half, hitting 10 three-pointers for the contest.
“I have to give a lot of respect to Coach Bob Marlin and his team,” Brady said. “They could have easily given up, but they played hard all game until it was over.”
Swift had another strong night, hitting nine of 14 shots from the field including one three-pointer.
“They doubled teamed me a lot in the post, but they opened up the wings for Lamont and he was wide open to shoot the three or drive to the goal,” said Swift.
“Coach just told us to come out hard. We went over their plays a couple of times at practice,” said Roland. “We tried to take away their penetration. That was the main thing we had seen on film. We knew if we did that we had a pretty good chance to win the game.”
“We didn’t play well today,” said Sam Houston’s Marlin. “Our game plan was to take away their inside game, and we weren’t successful. We didn’t have an answer for both Jabari and Stromile.”