BATON ROUGE — Junior All-Southeastern Conference forward Ronald Dupree scored 18 points and grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds to lead the Tigers to an 83-57 victory over Campbell in the season opener in the Maravich Assembly Center on Saturday night.
In only 30 minutes of play, Dupree made eight of a career-high tying 18 field goal attempts and added three assists, a blocked shot and an assist. Collis Temple III scored 16 points, while Torris Bright had 13 and nine assists. In 24 minutes of action, freshman Antonio Hudson scored 11 points on 5-of-9 shooting.
The Tigers (1-0) opened the season with a victory for the sixth year in a row, last losing in 1995-96 against St. Louis in the Hawaii Tip Off Classic. The Tigers also won their 15th-consecutive home opener — dating back to an 83-74 loss to TCU in the Preseason NIT — and their 29th consecutive game against non-conference opponents dating back to a 70-64 loss to Lamar on Dec. 1, 1997.
It was also the season opener for the Camels (0-1), who were picked to finish ninth in the 11-team Atlantic Sun Conference (formerly the Trans-Atlantic Athletic Conference) by both the coaches and the media.
Adam Fellers, a preseason All-Atlantic Sun Conference guard, made 6-of-15 shots to lead the Camels with 16 points, but only four in the second half.
“It was a good first game for us to play against a team like that,” said LSU coach John Brady. “We showed some patience, and on defense, I think that we did a nice job. We were pretty active and we did a nice job on Fellers. I thought we had a 30-point win, but then we threw the ball away two or three times in the last minutes of the game and that gave them some opportunities to score some points.”
Both the Tigers and Camels came out cold from the field as LSU made only three of its first 11 shots before Temple buried a trey on a fast break pass from Bright. Campbell made only 2-of-9 from the field in the first six minutes including a three pointer by Adam Fellers.
With 13:40 remaining in the half, LSU took advantage of a blown lay up by the Camels and turned it into another fast-break lay up from Temple to Bright. LSU led 13-6.
Brad Bridgewater picked up two early fouls to go along with a field goal and a pair of rebounds. He was replaced by Thomas Davis, who made an immediate impact with two offensive rebounds on LSU’s first possession without its tallest player. Davis also scored a basket and contributed to Campbell’s 30.8-percent shooting performance over the first nine minutes. Temple drained a three with a man is his face for his eighth point of the half and a 22-10 lead with 9:48 left in the half.
The Tigers extended the lead to 16, 31-15, with a pair of free throws, as the motion-oriented Camels continued to struggle in their season opener at 5-of-18 from the field (27.8 percent). Meanwhile, LSU was shooting 58.3 percent (14 of 24) with 5:45 on the clock in the half.
LSU led 41-29 at halftime.
While maintaining its shooting percentage, the Tigers stepped up their defense to start the second half. LSU held Campbell scoreless over the first 6:23 of the second half to extend the lead to 55-29 on 6-of-10 shooting. The lead was the largest of the game to that point.
“We had some opportunities in the first half that were lay up type opportunities that we were not able to take advantage of. The second half our first 11 possessions we had good shots but couldn’t get the ball in the basket. To LSU’s credit, they are a well-coached team and they came our fired up defensively and ran the fast break really well,” said Campbell head coach David Lee.
LSU led by as much as 30 in the second half, 83-53, with 2:09 to play.
“To have that team by 30 points at one points, with how well coached they are, I think speaks well for how we played defensively and it speaks well for what we did offensively,” said Brady.