BATON ROUGE — LSU overcame a 10-point second-half deficit with a 15-point run of its own later in the half to get a 70-60 win over Ole Miss Wednesday night at the Pete Maravich Center.
The victory gives LSU an overall record of 10-6 and 3-2 in the SEC, while Ole Miss falls to 11-9 and 2-5 in the league. The Tigers host Mississippi State Saturday at 2 p.m. with tickets on sale at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office the remainder of the week and on line at www.LSUsports.net.
The Tigers, down two at the half, trailed by 10, 50-40, when Brian Smith hit a three-pointer for Ole Miss with 14:05 to play and the Tigers still trailed by nine, 55-46, when Todd Abernethy made a layup for the Rebels at the 10:44 mark.
But then LSU started to make it move, but it was slow progress at first. Darrel Mitchell hit a trey at the 10:24 mark and it would be the 8:28 mark before Brandon Bass would hit two free throws to cut the game to 55-51. Some 90 seconds later, the Tigers would cut the game to two, 55-53, on two free throws by Mitchell.
The Tigers had the ball four times with a chance to tie or take the lead but failed to score. On the fifth try, Tack Minor missed a three-pointer, but Mitchell rebounded the miss, scored and was fouled to give LSU a 56-55 advantage with 4:27 left.
LSU continued to score adding a Hudson free throw and a Bass jumper to go up 59-55 with 3:36 to play and completed the 15-0 run on a dunk by Bass off a missed three-pointer to go up 61-55 with 3:03 to play. Ole Miss came down and made a trey to cut it briefly to three, before the Tigers made seven-of-eight free throws and a Minor jumper to secure the win.
All five starters scored in double figures for LSU with Mitchell scoring 16 points, Bass 14 (11 rebounds, five blocks), Glen Davis 13 (10 boards, his fifth straight double figure game in rebounds), Minor 12 and Hudson 10. Tommie Eddie led Ole Miss with 15 points, while Londrick Nolan scored 12.
“I was extremely proud of our team in how we responded and was able to find a way to win the game,” said LSU head coach John Brady. “Our team just battled back and won, and I think the reasons were because we defended when he needed to and we thought that we could get to the foul line against this team and we were able to go 17-for-20 from the free-throw line in the second half.
“I was really proud of all our players, particularly Brandon Bass for coming back after having a poor first half. He looked like he lost his concentration there for a moment, and he got a little frustrated. Then he came back in the second half, put that all behind him and was determined to defend and then go back and rebound the ball. The last 15 minutes of the game was just a toughness test for us and we passed it.”
LSU shot 44 percent for the game, but struggled for the third straight game from the arc, hitting just 3-of-13 treys. Ole Miss shot 39.3 percent overall and made eight treys. LSU out rebounded Ole Miss, 38-33. The Tigers had just six assists and 16 turnovers.