BATON ROUGE — Coming off an 11-day break for final exams, the LSU men’s basketball team overcame a sloppy performance by shooting 57.4 percent from the field to defeat the McNeese State Cowboys, 80-57, on Saturday night in the Maravich Assembly Center.
LSU (8-1) won its 34th straight non-conference home game and its 40th straight at home against in-state schools, while McNeese State fell to 4-5 overall.
The Tigers played the majority of the game without starting forward Collis Temple III, who left the game at the 14:30 mark of the first half with a sprained right ankle. In Temple’s absence, Ronald Dupree played 34 minutes and scored a game-high 25 points on 8-of-13 shooting which included four three-pointers.
Torris Bright added 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting, while Antonio Hudson had 13, Jason Wilson had nine and Jermaine Williams scored seven and added eight rebounds.
The game wasn’t starving for turnovers, as LSU finished with 23 and McNeese State committed 20.
The Tigers shot 61.9 percent from the field to open a 13-point halftime lead, 33-20, despite 13 turnovers. In the second half, a technical foul on the LSU bench ignited a 15-2 run for a 52-27 lead that effectively ended the Cowboys’ hopes.
The Cowboys were led by Jason Coleman, who had 21 points. Edward Garriett added 16.
McNeese took its only lead of the game, 3-2, when Coleman hit a three-pointer in the opening minute. The Tigers then went on a 9-2 run to extend the lead to 11-5 on a layup by Jason Wilson at the 16:50 mark.
Less than two minutes later, the Tigers pushed the lead to nine, 16-7, on a three-pointer by Dupree, and then to 11 on another trey by Bright with 11:55 to play in the half.
A three pointer — LSU’s fifth in six tries — by Dupree with the shot clock at zero gave the Tigers a 31-17 lead with less than five minutes to play in the half.
The lead got as large as 15, 33-17, on a jumper by Thomas Davis with 3:40 left in the first half.
The Tigers led 33-20 at halftime.
The team traded baskets over the first four minutes of the second half and McNeese cut the lead to as little as 11, 36-25. However, LSU then went on a 15-2 run over the next five minutes to put the game in hand.
McNeese used three-point shooting against mostly Tiger reserves over the final four minutes to keep the lead under 30.
The Tigers return to action in New Orleans’ Lakefront Arena on Tuesday evening at 8 p.m.