BATON ROUGE — In their home Southeastern Conference opener, the LSU Tigers fought back from two Alabama leads to defeat the Crimson Tide 70-66 Saturday afternoon in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Even with his team down by as many as 12 points to Alabama with five minutes to go, LSU coach John Brady believed that his team somehow would find a way to overcome the Crimson Tide and give the Tigers their first 2-0 start in Southeastern Conference play since 1995.
Brady’s belief was well founded. The Tigers outscored the Crimson Tide 20-6 over the final five minutes to pull out a 70-66 victory on Saturday.
“I was proud of our guys, because we had some things not go right for us,” Brady said. “It was one of those days where we refused to lose and were able to gut out the win.”
Darrel Mitchell led LSU (11-1, 2-0 SEC) with 19 points off the bench, 14 of those in the second half. The 19 points ties his career-best, also achieved on December 23 against Tulane.
Mitchell, who was 4-of-6 from three-point range, hit back-to-back shots from behind the arc to pull the Tigers into a 60-60 tie with three minutes to go.
LSU took the lead with 2:22 left on a Jaime Lloreda lay-up, but Alabama (8-4, 0-1) tied the game on two Earnest Shelton free throws, and then took a 64-62 lead on a 14- foot jumper by Kennedy Winston with 1:12 remaining.
The Tigers took the lead for good on their next trip down the floor. Following a timeout, Antonio Hudson hit a three-pointer from the top of the key with 52.2 seconds left to pull LSU ahead 65-64.
“Hudson came out of the hole and was able to get the ball in his hands,” Brady said. “I had a sneaking hunch when he was able to square his shoulders that it would go in.”
The Tigers hit 5 of 8 free throws down the stretch to ice the game.
“When you’re up by 12 with that much time left, it’s going to hurt a little,” Alabama coach Mark Gottfried said. “We made some mental mistakes and poor decisions late in the game, and we really hurt ourselves.”
LSU may have been able to put the game away earlier if it had not missed 13 of its 36 free throw attempts. Alabama was just 6 of 9 from the foul line.
Hudson scored 13 points, with three LSU players-Lloreda, Brandon Bass and Tack Minor-each finishing with 12 points.
“You can’t win on talent alone,” Brady said. “The biggest thing with this team is we have to be able to execute in critical moments of the game to win the game.”
The Crimson Tide used a 10-0 run over a four-minute stretch of the second half to take a 43-36 lead on a three-point play by Shelton with 12:43 to go. Alabama weathered an LSU attempt to overcome that lead, and eventually pulled out to a 57-45 edge with 6:42 to go when Winston hit a 12-foot jumper.
“We have to teach them how to be better at that point in the game,” Gottfried said. “That’s my job.”
Winston led Alabama with 15 points in 33 minutes, and was 7-of-10 from the field. Chuck Davis scoring 13, Emmett Thomas 11 and Shelton 10.
The Tide took a 7-2 lead in the early moments of the contest, and led by as many as seven in the first half, but a 7-0 run by the Tigers tied the game at 24-24. The Tide hit an easy lay-up with 14 seconds remaining to push ahead, 29-27. On the final play of the half, LSU’s Tack Minor held the ball, stepped right off an Antonio Hudson screen, and nailed about a 30-foot 3-pointer to push the Tigers ahead, 30-29. Bass and Lloreda both had eight points at the break for the Tigers.
The Tigers return to action quickly, having just one day off before heading to New Orleans to take on the Privateers of UNO at 7 p.m. in the New Orleans Lakefront Arena.