BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team jumped out to 11-0 lead in the first 5:30 of the contest and never looked back in winning its exhibition opener, 62-52, over EA Sports Tuesday night in front of 2,784 (7,279 paid) at the Pete Maravich Center.
The Tigers next play an exhibition game against the Houston Sports Group on Monday before opening the season on Nov. 19 against Tulane at 8 p.m. in the first round nightcap of the LSU Louisiana Classic.
LSU was led in scoring by Darrel Mitchell with 14 points. The junior from St. Martinville hit four-of-eight three-pointers and had four assists in 30 minutes. Tack Minor scored 12 points and dished out five assists in 27 minutes and Glen Davis made his exhibition debut for the Tigers with 12 points and four steals in 25 minutes. Ross Neltner had 11 rebounds to lead the Tigers in that category.
The 11 points of former LSU Tiger Brad Bridgewater who played 18 minutes off the bench led EA Sports, 0-4 on their present tour.
“The thing I wanted to see was how we were offensively. I do know this from just watching that game — we better be good in transition because we’re not real good in the half court. I think the only baskets we did get were in transition. We didn’t execute very well at all. I think we missed some really nice looks at the goal,” said LSU Coach John Brady. “We missed four or five lay-ups. Early on we missed some shots.”
For the game LSU shot 41.8 percent, hitting 51.9 percent (14-of-27) in the second half after hitting just 9-of-28 in the first 20 minutes. LSU was 7-of-15 for the game from the three-point arc and 9-of-14 at the free throw line. The rebounds in the contest were even at 36 apiece.
After LSU’s opening spurt, the lead went to as much as 19-5 at the 10 minute mark before EA Sports eventually closed it down to 27-22 at the intermission as LSU went the last 4:10 without a point. The visitors got the first points of the second half to cut it 27-24, but could get no closer as the Tigers were able to extend the game twice to 17 point leads.
“We started out real bad like we have the last three game, but it has a lot to do with LSU,” said EA Sports Coach Maury Hanks. “(LSU) have very good players, and they are well coached for so early in the season. We fought back and I think we gave them a competitive game.”