HILO, Hawai’i — The LSU Tigers used a dominating start and a transitional fast break in the first half and then strong three-point shooting in the second half to score a convincing, 84-54, win over Mercer in the consolation championship game of the Big Island Invitational at the Afook-Chinen Civic Center Sunday afternoon.
It was a case of the Tigers saving their best basketball for the last day of the tournament after somewhat lackluster performances in a loss to Weber State on Friday and a late-game win over Hawai’i-Hilo on Saturday.
But the Tigers would take home the trophy and make it five wins in six games in two trips to Hawai’i under LSU coach John Brady.
The final stats told the story of the contest as point guard Torris Bright played 36 minutes, scoring 18 points with 10 assists and just one turnover. Bright was just one rebound shy of a triple-double with nine boards.
“Torris Bright was just outstanding in the game,” said LSU coach John Brady. “Torris was one rebound away from a triple-double. He should have been all-tournament.”
Collis Temple III led LSU with 22 points, while also dishing out six assists in his 36 minutes with Ronald Dupree getting 17 points in 34 minutes.
“We played better in this game, especially in the second half,” said Brady of the game which upped LSU’s record to 4-1. “We shot 53 percent in the second half, 66 percent (8-of-12) from three-point range. The only thing we didn’t do that I would have liked to have done is go to the free throw line a little more. It was a nice game for us, we out rebounded them, 45-27. So overall it was a nice win for us. We certainly needed it.
“It’s a shame, when we are right, we may be the best team here. Unfortunately, we didn’t win the first game because we didn’t follow the proper instructions at the end. But you learn from it, you grow from it and it is nice to see our team come out and play as it did at the end,” said the LSU coach.
Mercer, 1-4, got 16 points from Aleem Muhammad and 12 from Will Emerson.
The Tigers jumped out to a 14-0 lead as LSU appeared excited about playing the game for the tournament’s fifth place spot. LSU. All the starters were involved as Jermaine Williams, Brad Bridgewater, Temple, Bright and Dupree had their hands in the opening run, with Jason Wilson coming off the bench for the lay in to give LSU the 14-0 lead.
But just as quickly, Mercer answered back led by Muhammad, who had the Bears only field goals in the first 12 minutes with two threes and two two-pointers as the Bears trailed just 20-14 by the time the game reached the eight-minute media time out.
The Tigers, though, were not letting the Bears run bother them as they consistently used its transition from offense to defense to come up with easy layups and a few more free throw opportunities. Mercer closed the game to four, 24-20, on an Andrew Walker trey, but LSU went on a 14-5 run to close the half to go to the dressing room up, 40-25. Temple, still struggling from three-point range, had seven points in that run, driving to the basket and getting two break away lay ups.
The Tigers let the Bears back a bit into the game starting the second as LSU missed a three-pointer and two layups while Mercer scored the first nine points of the half to cut the LSU lead to 40-34 with 17:40 remaining in the game.
But just as quickly, LSU kicked it back into gear, going on a 10-0 run of their run to go back up by 16 points, 50-34, with 15 minutes to play.
LSU would advance the lead to 20 with 11 minutes to go in the game as Temple began to get his long-range game in gear again, hitting three three-pointers. The Tigers would have as much as the 30-point lead they acquired in the game’s final seconds.
“You have to credit Mercer when we had it 14-0 for coming back and making a game of it,” said Brady. “At the same time, we can’t allow our team to have lapses and not put teams away. We need to do a better job of putting a team away. We let them get back a bit in the second half, but we hopped it back up real quick to 20 and finished with it up at 30. We hope the trip has been a learning process and now we come home to play some important games and we hope our fans will come out and support us.”
The Tigers return home for the next three games, facing Towson University on Wednesday night at the Maravich Assembly Center at 7 p.m. Before the break for semester exams, LSU will also play Northwestern State on Dec. 2 at 4:15 p.m. and Louisiana-Lafayette on Dec. 4 at 7 p.m.