BATON ROUGE — Lafayette came home to Baton Rouge and single-handedly beat LSU. Oliver Lafayette of Houston, that is. The 6-3 junior guard scored 32 points on 12-of-20 shooting including 6-of-9 from three-point range to bury the newly ranked Tigers 84-83 in the Maravich Center.
Lafayette, a product of Capital High School, made 10-of-13 shots in the second half and scored 27 points to bring the Cougars from 15 points down to victory.
Houston improved to 2-1, while LSU fell to 3-1.
The Tigers were led by Darrel Mitchell, who scored 25 points on 9-of-14 shooting. Tyrus Thomas came off the bench to score 21 points and grab 11 rebounds, while Tasmin Mitchell added 18 and Glen Davis had 15.
LSU shot 58.2 percent from the field (32 of 55), but missed 13 free throws and had 21 turnovers. Houston made 13 three pointers on 23 attempts (56.5 percent) and finished 31 of 58 from the field (53.4 percent).
For the first time in the game, the teams were separated by more than three points when Tasmin Mitchell blocked a 10-foot jumper by Houston’s Lamar Roberson, pulled down the rebounded and whipped a pass half the length of the court for a Darrel Mitchell dunk. The Tigers led 18-14 with 11:27 left in the first half.
As Houston struggled from the field (8 of 21), LSU was able to increase the lead to 32-19 at the 5:06 mark on a three-consecutive layups by Glen Davis and a three-pointer by Tasmin Mitchell that capped a 14-2 run.
The Tigers took a 43-31 lead into halftime behind 59 percent shooting (16 of 27) from the field and a 21-10 rebound advantage.
Houston came out of the lockerroom with a purpose in the second half, scoring the first 11 points and taking the lead from a shaken and turnover-prone Tigers starting lineup.
With the Tigers committing seven turnovers in just more than four minutes, Houston earned a 49-46 lead on 7-of-8 shooting.
The hot shooting by the Cougars continued, as Houston made 10 of their first 15 shots in the second half to lead 58-53 with 11:58 to play.
The Tigers continued to fight the torrid Houston shooting and edged as close as two points, 67-65, on a break-away dunk by Darrel Mitchell despite 7-of-8 shooting from three-point range by the Cougars.
Houston extended the lead to six, 74-68, on Lafayette’s sixth three-pointer with just under four minutes to play in the game.
LSU got as close as two, 78-76, with scores on consecutive possessions by Thomas and Darrel Mitchell with 1:30 to play but didn’t get any closer until a half-court shot by Thomas fell at the buzzer.
Though exams were delayed a due to the hurricane, the Tigers return to action after a scheduled finals break on Dec. 10 when McNeese State comes to the Maravich Center for a 7 p.m. tip off.
At halftime, Warren Heard of New Haven, Conn., won the free getaway weekend at R.W. Day’s South Gate Towers when his key opened the prize door at halftime. Though his shot for free rent for a year banked off the front of the rim, Heard announced that he would donate his weekend getaway to a homeless family.
LSU HEAD COACH JOHN BRADY
Opening Statement…
“It’s disappointing to lose any game, but particularly that one. A team of mine gives up 53 in the second half and start the second half we turned it over six out of seven times and they scored seven out of eight. Therein kind of set the tone for the second half. You would think when you play at home and you shoot 58 percent from the floor, out rebound the opponent 42 to 20, you go to the line 27 times, you score 83 points, you would think for that I’ve coached that would be enough to win the game.”
“They made some plays over us to, so it’s not like I don’t think the guy was shooting wide open shots. We allowed them to go 65 percent from the floor, 8-for-10 from the three point line, which I thought was really critical in the second half. We never could get a real stop on that team. It was a little surprising that team scored 61 at home on Saturday and was 7-for-26 from the three. They came in tonight and made some shots over us.”
“The mistakes that we made with the ball to start the second half, we weren’t able to overcome it. They got confident and started making some balls, I think, uncharacteristically that they don’t make. Defensively, they just shot over us. It was disappointing to lose the game, but it was disappointing to lose it giving up 53 in the second half and allow them to come into our building and make eight out of 10 threes. I thought offensively we did enough to win.
“Now, the team decides which way it needs to go. We still are in a learning curve. We’re still a work in progress. We made some mistakes we really, mistakes that we need to eliminate in order to beat good teams. We got away with it the other night at West Virginia when we turned the ball over at some critical moments, but tonight we weren’t able to get away with it.”
“The other stat that’s glaring to me is the 27 points off of our turnovers. When you do that and they shoot 65 percent from the floor in the second half and go eight out of 10 from the three, even though you play well offensively, those numbers are hard to overcome. We just need to be a little more aggressive, a little more tougher with the ball and make some better decisions.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
On Oliver Lafayette…
“He just came out in the second half and played an excellent game. He basically took the game over in the second half. We couldn’t really do anything with him and I think that was a key point in the second half.”
On the second half turnovers…
“We had seven turnovers to start the half. They came down on the offensive end and got points off our turnovers. If we want to win big games in the second half we’ve got to take care of the ball.”
On being focused for the second half…
“I told the guys at halftime that they would come out and play harder then they did in the first half. We just made a lot of turnovers to start the second half and kind of showed our maturity.”
On what to take from the game…
“You can’t really take this loss and worry about it because it’s just the fourth game of the season. We have a long way to go. We just have to watch the tape tomorrow and pick up on our mistakes. We have to pick up on the things we didn’t do right and work on them tomorrow in practice.”
HOUSTON HEAD COACH TOM PENDERS
Opening Statement
“The game was the tempo we wanted. It didn’t look good for us in the first 20 minutes for a number of reasons. One was Lanny Smith, who has been the key to our team. He was rolling over on that bad ankle of his. For me to expect Brian Latham to come in and play the point in this type of game, I was doubtful before the game whether he could do something like that.”
On Oliver Lafayette …
“This was his coming out party. I have been challenging him to be assertive and attack the lane, not hesitate to shoot it. Think of Allen Iverson. Your bigger than he is. You have a pretty shot. Don’t be afraid to take over. You’ll ask him and I am sure that is what he will tell you. We have proved that we can replace Andre Owens, who is in the NBA right now. Last year, Owens took over the LSU game at home. Oliver is a super talent. It’s hard to come home in front of people and deal with the pressure. He also had a gash in his hand. He threw up an air ball and that really got him mad when the fans started yelling at him. I think that spurred him on. I really do. Some kids lose their confidence, but Oliver got ticked.”
On their defensive pressure in the paint…
“We figured we were going to let other people beat us. We said if Glen Davis gets 30 points, we can’t win. We are going to have to front him and pressure passes. We are going to have to give something up on the wings. We didn’t want little (Darrel) Mitchell killing us either. We tried to focus on those two guys defensively. In the second half, we went into a 21-match up press to try to slow them down. We didn’t do that in the first half. We waited until halftime.”
HOUSTON PLAYER QUOTES
G Oliver Lafayette
“My coach told me I was rushing everything and taking shots too fast. He said slow down and let the game come to you. Be like Allen Iverson and shoot the basketball like I know you can. That is what I did. It feels good to come back here and get a win over my team, especially with all of the teammates I used to play with back in the day. The goal felt too big. Everything I shot in the second half felt good. Coach just told me to keep on shooting.”
G Corey Bloom
“Coach got on me a little bit about staying focused and coming off of the bench and taking my time. That is what I came out here and did tonight. It felt good to be back home.”