By David Steinle
Special to LSUsports.net
After five games of a long basketball season, there will always be kinks to iron out. And for the first 10 minutes of Saturday’s home game against McNeese State, LSU showed that it was still a work in progress, needing some more restoration work to proclaim itself ready for the big nationally televised showdown on December 21 against top-ranked Arizona in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
But in this first contest without the departed Shawnson Johnson, as well as the last game before the Tigers take a break for final exams this week, LSU’s performance in a 93-72 victory over the Cowboys certainly merited straight A’s. The Bayou Bengals put it all together in their most complete performance of the young season, and one of the better December efforts in the John Brady era.
Coach John Brady, like the other 316 Division I coaches, has a lot to work on during the practices in the upcoming week, but if there were ever a way to take momentum into a seven-day break for the stressful test, Saturday’s contest was the way to do it.
“I thought we put two pretty good halves together,” said the sixth-year LSU coach. “I think our team is playing much better and improving, and I think we have adjusted to playing some of the right people in the right spots, and we really have made some progress.”
Early on, LSU looked like it might have trouble extending its 40-game home winning streak against in-state foes, as the only consistent offense the Tigers could find was on 3-point jumpers by Collis Temple, who drained two in a 30-second stretch to give LSU an 8-2 lead.
After that, the Cowboys used an 8-0 run to take their first lead at 10-8, but a dunk by Ronald Dupree on a feed from Torris Bright tied the score, and LSU would trail only once the rest of the game, and that came at 23-22 at the 6:53 mark of the half.
Dupree, who scored a team-high 14 points at the first half, turned himself into Dr. Dunkenstein in the opening stanza, as he again scored on a feed from Bright at the 14:15 mark of the half to extend LSU’s lead to 14-10, and then he took a pass from Temple on the break to bring the crowd to its feet as part of a 14-2 run over the final 3:58 of the opening stanza to send the Tigers to the locker room with a 40-29 edge.
Dupree, moved by Brady from the four to the five in the starting lineup for the first time this season, dominated the first half. The second half was another coming out party for the other forward in LSU’s three-guard lineup, Jaime Lloreda.
Junior college transfers are always a risky proposition, given the fact that many are academic risks or will not pan out to be as good as advertised. LSU certainly found this out again the hard way earlier this week when Johnson upped and quit the team at halftime of Tuesday’s game with Delaware State.
As far as trades go, Lloreda certainly won’t come close to the value of the Panama Canal, which the U.S. ceded control of in the Carter administration, but Lloreda may be the safest JUCO prospect Brady will ever bring in.
The 2002 National JUCO Player of the Year struggled early against McNeese center Larry Jackson, who at 6-foot-11 is the largest player Lloreda and the Tigers have faced in this young season. Jackson held Lloreda to just seven points in the first half, as the Panamanian shot just 3-for-8 from the floor despite getting several open looks close to the basket, while Lloreda was only 1-of-4 from the free throw line.
Lloreda wasted little time in helping LSU put the game away, using a layup and a 3-point play in a 85-second span of the second half to spur a 10-0 run that expanded the Tigers’ cushion to 52-33 with 15:35 to play.
After missing a pair from the foul line at the 14:45 mark of the second half, Lloreda finished the game by making his final four shots from the charity stripe, helping him lead LSU with 23 points, including 16 in the second half.
Last year, Brady often complained about the lack of an inside presence, and wondered what Johnson would have done to help that inside game.
After the Tigers’ performance against McNeese, Tiger fans may wonder why Johnson was worth the trouble. Dupree and Lloreda combined for 45 points on 16-of-26 shooting and grabbed 20 rebounds, nine of them on the offensive end. If Brad Bridgewater, who went 0-for-4, can regain his shooting touch, the Tigers will be just fine in the paint and will have that inside game to compliment an already potent outside game.
Lost in the shuffle was another superb effort by senior guard Torris Bright, who is looking more and more comfortable at the point. The former Parade All-American from Slidell played one of the best games in his four years at LSU, scoring 16 points, including a 3-of-5 leger from beyond the arc, but dished out 12 assists and committed only one turnover in 35 minutes.
Most coaches are ecstatic if their point guard can maintain a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, but 12-to-1 left Brady grasping for superlatives.
“When Torris is playing that way, we can become a nice team,” Brady said. “I’m not saying he’ll play like that every game, but when he plays with that kind of composure, he brings a nice flow to our team.”
As a team, LSU kept the 2-to-1 ratio in perfect order, committing just 10 turnovers compared to 20 assists, as Temple, Darrel Mitchell and Antonio Hudson’s ability to run the offense was the main reason why LSU shot 60.6 percent from the floor in the second half and 50.8 percent for the game.
Although 72 points and 46.3 percent shooting might be a tad-high for the defensive-minded Brady, he had to be pleased with the season-high 24 turnovers the Tiger defense forced, many of them by the guards in the LSU press.
Bright’s backups at the point, Mitchell and Tony Gipson, both drew deserved praise from Brady after their performances.
“Those two guys are explosive in terms of athleticism, and both have good quickness,” Brady said. “That is how you earn playing time, buy getting into games and making positive things happen.”
Mitchell, who led St. Martinville Senior High to the Class 4A state championship last year and earned Mr. Basketball honors, earned a spot in the rotation with a solid performance, scoring a career high 12 points in 23 minutes, overcoming a rough game against Delaware State in which he was held scoreless in 12 minutes.
Gipson did not play in two of LSU’s first four games, but he brought the house down in the second half when he took a feed from Bright with 9:49 to play to give LSU a 69-48 edge.
Everyone who put on an LSU uniform got into the game, and Courtney Trask, the former Parkview Baptist star who transferred from Memphis, scored his first career LSU points on a layup in the last two minutes.
In the press conference after Tuesday’s game, Brady was ready to forget about Johnson and move on to those players who wanted to wear the LSU uniform. As was apparent from Saturday’s game, so were the players.
“I was proud of our team for what it went through the last three or four days to come out and play as well as it did,” Brady said. “It was a good game for us.”