ATLANTA — The LSU Tigers are liking Atlanta, the Georgia Dome and the SEC Tournament and they aren’t ready to come back to Baton Rouge.
On Friday, the Tigers went toe-to-toe in a heavyweight battle with 16th-ranked Georgia in a Southeastern Conference quarterfinal which was full of quality athletes battling back and forth for 40 minutes before a freak play and a breakaway dunk spelled the difference in a 78-76 win for LSU, advancing the Tigers to the semifinals of the tournament.
LSU will play the winner of Friday’s 6:30 p.m. CST game between the winner of Florida, a winner on Thursday, or Mississippi State, which had a first-round bye. That game is set for noon CST and will be broadcast on the LSU Sports Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and on the Internet at www.LSUsports.net. The television broadcast will be carried on the Jefferson Pilot Sports network (WAFB-TV, in Baton Rouge).
The game had been tied at 74-74 for almost two and a half minutes when LSU in bounded the ball under its own goal. Torris Bright tried to bounce the ball off the back of one of three Georgia players facing away from Bright. The ball fell on the floor, Bright stepped inbounds and tried to go up for a contested lay up. It was missed and Bright and Brad Bridgewater both went up for it and Bright got a finger on it to slap it in the bucket for a 76-74 advantage with 1:31 to play.
Chris Daniels came down and missed a field goal attempt with 1:14 left and Bright rebounded. LSU tried to put the game away but Antonio Hudson missed two field goal attempts to give Georgia the ball with 32 seconds left. Ezra Williams, who led Georgia with 27 points, and who hit 11 field goals and five treys, missed a three-point attempt with 20 seconds to play.
Bright again rebounded and after the ball bounced crazily around, it ended up in the hands of Bridgewater who took it down the floor for a thunderous dunk to give LSU what appeared to be a winning 78-74 advantage with 14 seconds left.
But Rashad Wright after a time out took the ball the length of the floor for a lay up with eight seconds left and on the inbounds, Charlie Thompson threw the ball in expecting a Jermaine Williams cut but no one was home and Ezra Williams of Georgia stole the ball and was fouled with six seconds to play. Williams missed both free throws and Ronald Dupree was fouled. He missed the first end of a one-and-one with three seconds to play, but the ball rolled around loose on the floor until the final horn giving the Tigers the win.
“First of all, I’m proud of our team, extremely proud of our team,” said LSU coach John Brady. “They went through a lot of adversity at the midpoint of the season and stayed with the belief system in each other. Antonio Hudson has emerged as a scorer on our team when we needed one and we have good leadership with Ronald, Torris, Jermaine. We’re playing some pretty good basketball. I didn’t know if we could generate enough points, but we played really nice offense.”
In all, seven players on the two teams were in double figures as the two teams combined to shoot almost 50 percent. Hudson had 23 points, to follow his career high 24 the day before against Vanderbilt, with Dupree breaking out of his two-game shooting slump with 18 and nine rebounds. Bright had 17 points and Bridgewater 14.
Besides’ Williams 27, Wright (who had the winning field goal in the Bulldogs, 55-54 win over LSU in late February in Baton Rouge) had 17 and Jarvis Hayes had 11 points.
LSU shot 54.2 percent for the game, 65 percent (13-of-20) from the field in the second half. LSU was 7-of-12 from three-point range and 19-of-24 (79.2 percent) from the free throw line. In the two conference games, LSU is 36-of-47 from the free throw line or 76.7 percent.
“First of all compliments to LSU to a brilliant game,” said Georgia coach Jim Harrick, beaten for the second straight year in the tournament by LSU by a combined three points. “LSU played a magnificent game…had some big shots and ran the clock down. You know, though, we never quit and played hard.”
In the first part of the game, it looked like Georgia would have little trouble breaking out of its 0-5 slump in games in the big dome with a crowd of 20,427 looking on. The Bulldogs quickly jumped out to 14-6 and 20-8 leads on the Tigers in the first seven minutes before the Tigers could get things back in a rhythm they liked.
But from that point, LSU went on an 18-6 run to tie the game at 26-26 on a Bright trey and would have as much as a five-point advantage late in the half before going into the dressing room, up 38-35.
“We stuck to the game plan and we didn’t get shaken up when they went on their runs,” said LSU’s Dupree. “We weathered the storm in the first half and we were able to keep our poise. On defense, it was an open-court game up and down. I think we handled it okay. I think we need to step up on defense a little bit more to be successful in the next game.”
In all there would be six ties and seven lead changes, with most of those in the second half. It was LSU’s first win against a ranked opponent this season in seven attempts. LSU makes the semifinals for the first time since 2000 and will be looking to make the finals for the first time since 1993.