by Chris Macaluso
LSUsports.net
BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team took another frustrating step in this struggle of a Southeastern Conference season with a 55-48 loss to Mississippi State at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center Saturday night.
The loss was LSU’s ninth-straight, all to conference opponents and dropped its record to 11-14 overall, 1-13 in the SEC.
Mississippi State avenged an earlier 82-73 loss to the Tigers Jan. 24 in Starkville and improved its record to 15-10 overall, 6-8 in conference.
The Tigers went down fighting cutting an 11-point halftime deficit to one several times in the last eight minutes of the game. But the Bulldogs were able to stave off every LSU challenge by making tough contested shots in the lane and hitting free throws.
The Bulldogs made 10-14 from the line in the second and 14-18 for the game compared to just 7-11 for LSU for the game.
A Ronald Dupree jumper gave LSU a 13-6 lead with a 13:46 to play in the first half. But that lead was quickly cut into when Bulldog forward Tang Hamilton buried a three-pointer on MSU’s next trip down the floor.
Dupree lead all scorers with 16 while Collis Temple III added 11 and Torris Bright had 10 for the Tigers. Mississippi State had three players in double figures as well, lead by Antonio Jackson’s 14.
Bulldog guard Marckell Patterson hit a three of his own with 11:07 left in the first giving State its first lead of the game, 14-13.
The Bulldogs extended that lead throughout the remainder of the half, eventually taking a 32-21 advantage into the locker room. The
Mississippi State offense worked efficiently in the first, shooting 52 percent from the floor compared to LSU’s 34.6 percent performance.
State’s second-half shooting took a downward turn, as the Bulldogs were able to make just 6-20 shots from the floor while LSU hit on just 9-26 from the floor, the same number of shots it took and made in the first.
Temple cut the State lead to 42-41 with 8:03 left in the game with a long three from the left wing. But LSU missed shots on its next four trips down the floor, allowing the Bulldogs to hang onto a precarious lead of no more than three points for the next six minutes of the game.
Mississippi State extended its lead back to six with 1:14 to play on a lay-up by Quentin Smith. Temple hit another three on LSU’s ensuing trip to cut the State lead to 51-48 with 1:00 to play. The Bulldogs put the game away at the line hitting all four of its free throws in the waning moments.
LSU has just two more chances to win in the regular season. The Tigers play host to 12th-ranked Ole Miss Wednesday before closing out the regular season at Tennessee Saturday, March 3.