NEW ORLEANS — The LSU Tigers weathered a second-half storm before finishing strong to defeat Oregon State, 78-68, late Thursday night in the Nokia Sugar Bowl Classic at the New Orleans Arena.
The host Southeastern Conference ran its record to 4-0 in the two-years of the current doubleheader format, as Florida downed Tulane in the opener. A crowd of 6,215 watched the contest.
The Tigers improved to 8-1 on the season heading into a Wednesday, Jan. 3, contest against Wyoming. That game starting time has been moved to 6 p.m. at the Maravich Assembly Center to allow fans to attend both the game and then watch a majority of the national championship football game on television. Tickets for the game are available on the Internet at www.LSUsports.net and at the LSU Athletic Ticket Office beginning Jan. 2.
The Tigers opened the game with its third different starting lineup of the season as both Torris Bright and Lamont Roland missed their first starts of the season after violating team rules. LSU Coach John Brady said after the game the pair had missed the team curfew assigned to them in New Orleans on Wednesday night.
In their place were freshman walk on Charlie Thompson and junior Jermaine Williams. Roland would enter the game first some five minutes in and Bright about seven minutes into the contest.
The Beavers drove inside on LSU early on, getting their first eight points on three layups and a dunk, before Steinthal hit two three-pointers to give Oregon State a 14-8 advantage with 14:43 to go in the first half. LSU then went on a 10-0 run to take the lead for good with 10 minutes to go in the half.
Ronald Dupree was having success getting inside on the Beavers and Collis Temple and then Bright, once he found the rhythm after missing his first three shots, began to connect from outside the three-point arc.
The Tigers went to the halftime dressing room with a 37-23 advantage and came out 15 minutes later to find that the lead had shrunk to 35-23. When Roland was fouled with 1.7 seconds left in the half by Josh Steinthal, it was just the sixth team foul, but the officials were signaled that it was the seventh and Roland made the one and one free throws. At the half, the mistake was rectified and under the correctable error rules, the points were taken off the board.
With LSU’s Front Row Lunatics 2000 looking on from the best seats on the front row floor at the Arena, the Tigers tried to send everyone home early by going on a 9-3 spurt to lead, 44-26, with 16:48 to go in the contest.
But then things began to get away from LSU as the defense slacked a bit and the Oregon State offense got on track. At the same time LSU missed six shots, had one turnover, one lay up by Jermaine Williams and two technical fouls called (one on the bench, one on Roland). This allowed Oregon State to cut the lead to just two, 46-44, with 12:19 to play and with possession of the basketball.
But for the first of three times with a chance in the second half over the next five minutes, Oregon State could not convert and LSU would come back on the other end. Much of the second half was a long-range shooting gallery for both teams as each team finished with 11 threes, eight by the Beavers in the final 15 minutes.
LSU was able to get the game back out to nine points, 67-58, with 2:31 to play and kept the Beavers at bay for the final margin.
Temple would finish as LSU’s leading scorer with 22 points, hitting 8-of-13 shots, including 3-of-6 treys, while Ronald Dupree picked up his fifth double-double of the year with 20 points and 12 rebounds, six offensive. Dupree was 9-of-15 from the field. Bright, after missing his first three shots outside the three-point arc, hit five-of-his-next six to finish with 15 points, 6 assists and just two turnovers. Bright was 5-of-11 from the field, 5-of-9 from the arc. Rounding out the double-figure numbers were Brian Beshara with 14 points, including two treys of his own.
Deaundra Tanner hit 8-of-15 shots, including four treys to lead the Beavers with 25 points on the night, while Adam Masten hit for 12 points.
LSU for the game hit 52.7 percent from the floor, including 16-of-28 (57.1 percent) in the second half. LSU was 11-of-24 from three-point range (45.8 percent). The only part of the shooting game was LSU had its first real off night at the charity stripe, hitting just 9-of-16 attempts (56.3 percent). The Tigers out rebounded Oregon State, 30-25, and had 15 assists, 12 turnovers and 11 steals in winning the first meeting with the Beavers since 1969, upping its series lead to 3-1.