BATON ROUGE — Collis Temple III came back from a one-game absence with a sprained ankle to score 17 second-half points including a game-tying three-pointer with less than a minute to play, as LSU battled past Houston, 73-69, on Thursday night in the Maravich Assembly Center.
LSU (9-2) won its 35th consecutive non-conference home game dating back to Dec. 1, 1997. Houston fell to 5-4 overall.
Temple scored 22 points on 7-of-15 shooting including four three pointers to lead LSU, while Torris Bright sparked the first half with 17 points to finish with 19 and four assists. Brad Bridgewater played a spectacular game and made 8-of-11 shots to score 16 points.
The Tigers shot 50 percent from the field, 29 of 58, while Houston was slightly better at 50.9 percent (28 of 55). The Cougars committed 18 turnovers to LSU’s 12.
The Tigers jumped out to a 6-0 lead before Houston cut the lead in half with their first basket of the game, a three-pointer by Kevin Gaines with 16:39 remaining in the half.
LSU then went up 14-7 on a fastbreak layup by Torris Bright, but Houston answered with a 7-0 run to tie the game 14-14. Thomas Davis put back Jermaine Williams’ missed jumper to regain the lead for the Tigers with 10:55 left to play, 16-14.
Both teams committed five turnovers in the first nine minutes of the game, however, LSU made 8-of-16 shots while Houston was only 5-of-14 for 35.7 percent.
Bright, who committed two of these LSU turnovers, stepped up his play coming out of the media timeout with a steal and a pull-up three-pointer on the next possession. With his second trey of the game, Bright moved ahead of Brian Beshara into fifth place in school history with 123.
LSU went on an 8-0 run and led 22-14, but Houston again answered with a 6-0 run of its own to narrow the lead to 22-20 at the eight-minute media timeout.
For the second time, Bright came out of a timeout and hit a three-pointer to break the Houston run. After Houston countered with a layup, Bright made his third straight to put LSU up by six, 28-22, with 6:12 left in the half.
Williams’ fall-away jumper from 12 feet as the shot clock expired kept the Tigers’ lead in tact at five, 37-32, with 2:03 remaining in the half.
Houston’s George Wilson hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to cut the lead to 39-37 at halftime.
A steal by Bright in the opening minutes of the second half gave him 151 for his career to tie Leonard Mitchell for sixth in school history.
Both Dupree and Temple picked up their third fouls of the game in the first 1:43 of the second half, but each stayed the game. The decision paid off immediately, as Temple hit a three-pointer the next time down the court to give LSU a 48-39 lead, its largest of the game.
Temple’s layup off a steal by Williams gave him 10 points after missing the previous game with a sprained ankle. LSU led 55-44 with 15:22 remaining.
LSU then went cold from the field and Houston slowly came back to tie the game, 55-55. However, a delay-of-game technical foul on Patrick Okafor led to a free throw and then a three-pointer by Temple for the Tigers’ first field goal in 6:21.
The Tigers’ four-point lead didn’t last long, as Houston earned a second-chance basket and then a layup off an LSU turnover to tie the game once again at 59-59 with 7:10 remaining.
Houston took its first lead of the game, 61-59, on a pair of free throws with just more than six minutes to play.
Temple’s trey from the right corner brought the Tigers within one with 4:05 left, and Bridgewater put back his blocked shot to give LSU the lead once again, 66-65, with 2:54 on the clock.
Houston missed the front end of a one-and-one, but Williams was there for the rebound and the put back. On its next possession, the lead moved to three on a 10-footer by Okafor from the left baseline, 69-66.
With a minute to play, Temple buried a 21-foot three-pointer to tie the game at 69-69, before Antonio Hudson forced a turnover on a drive to the goal which led to a dunk on the other end by Bridgewater.
LSU led 71-69 with 21.4 seconds remaining when Houston called a timeout to set up its final play.
After LSU countered with a timeout of its own, Houston turned the ball over with 12 seconds left and was forced to foul Dupree on the in-bounds play.
Dupree missed the front end, Houston got the rebound and had the ball knocked out of bounds by Bright on the other end. After using its final timeout, Houston took the ball under its own goal with 4.4 seconds left. Bright stole the deflected in-bounds play and made both free throws to seal the victory.
LSU returns to action on Dec. 27 when it takes on Miami in the second game of the Sugar Bowl Classic at 9:30 p.m. in the New Orleans Arena.