BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team doubled its 13-point halftime lead in the first seven minutes of the second half and steamrolled New Orleans, 94-53, on Tuesday in the Maravich Center.
Glen Davis led LSU (5-1) with 20 points and 16 rebounds, while Darnell Lazare matched the effort with a career-high 20 points — 16 in the second half.
Senior guard Darrel Mitchell added 19 points, while Tyrus Thomas had 11 off the bench.
The Tigers finished 38 of 71 from the field (53.5 percent), and out-rebounded the Privateers 49-30. LSU forced 18 turnovers and scored 29 points off of the UNO mistakes.
UNO (2-5) was led by guard Wayne Williams who scored 16 points on 7-of-14 shooting. No other Privateer was in double figures scoring.
UNO managed only 35.4 percent from the field (23 of 65), including 4-of-17 from three-point range. The Privateers got to the free throw line only three times, making each.
The Tigers opened a 19-10 lead after consecutive three-point plays by redshirt freshman point guard Garrett Temple — one conventional and one earned at the line — less than eight minutes into the half.
The Privateers scored nine straight in just more than two minutes to tie the game at 19-19, however, LSU answered with the next six to open the lead to 25-19 as each team shot better than 55 percent early on.
New Orleans edged within one, 25-24, on a three-pointer by Jeremie Davis, but again LSU responded with a 16-2 run capped by another Temple three-pointer.
LSU led 43-30 at halftime.
UNO got no closer than 11 for the remainder of the contest, as the Tigers mounted a 19-4 run to extend the advantage to 64-38 with 13:05 to play.
The Tigers return to action on Saturday, Dec. 17, when they play host to Louisiana-Lafayette in the Maravich Center at 7 p.m.
LSU HEAD COACH JOHN BRADY
Opening Statement…
“I thought our team played well throughout the game, in particular the second half where we came out with more energy. That’s what we talked about at halftime. The first half we were good enough, but we didn’t really establish ourselves with a presence like I wanted. In the second half we came out and did that, and we did that from a defensive standpoint. We came back and rebounded the ball a little better as evidenced by the separation of the score. But still, you can win a game by whatever the margin is, you can score 94 points, shoot over 50 percent from the floor and outrebound your opponent by 20 again, and there’s a lot of improvement that we can make. We did cut our turnovers down. Our post players committed a lot less turnovers. Darnell (Lazare) did not have a turnover tonight, Tasmin (Mitchell) only had one, Tyrus Thomas only had one. Glen (Davis) still had four, but Glen’s still going to have turnovers because he’s going to be a guy people are going to try to double team and keep the ball from. He’s going to have make plays a little better from the post. I expect him to be a little more turnover-prone than the other posts because they’re going to run at him and make it difficult for him. I look at Glen’s numbers of 20 (points) and 16 (rebounds), and I don’t want to put any pressure on him but I think he’s better than that. I still think he can be better. But it was a good team win, and I’m trying to get our team to consistently make good decisions with the ball and to defend and rebound and execute. It got a little easier for us once their posts got in foul trouble and they didn’t have any more size around the goal. It got pretty easy to score baskets. To hold them to 23 (points) in the second half, I was proud of that, and getting back on the board, I was proud of that. I felt good about handling the ball a little better, particularly our post players.
“I feel bad for UNO’s team, and I feel bad for (their head coach) Monte (Towe). He’s a good friend of mine and a good coach, and that has to be the most difficult situation. He loses Bo McCalebb on top of that, and that can almost take the wind out of a team’s sails. With the road they have ahead, they leave here and go to Purdue and Kansas, and it’s amazing their plight. I hope this team holds together. I know it’s been difficult for them and I feel for what they’re going through.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
On dominating the game inside…
“In practice coach was basically telling us to create a presence. These guys are athletic and very physical so you had to go out there and match the intensity that they bring. That was the object, to execute things in post and my team was looking for me and I hit the open jumpers and hit the open shots.”
On the tough schedule coming up…
“Well, me personally, I’m definitely looking forward to that challenge. It’s going to be the toughest schedule we’ve had my three years here. Those games, especially with them being on the road, it’s going to prepare us for that Arkansas game on the road and that Alabama game on the road and all those SEC games because you know every night in the SEC is a dogfight.”
On Tack Minor’s return…
“He said he’s anxious to come back and I’m ready for him to come back too. He comes back on Saturday so he just has to fit in the team the best he can and help us out any way he can, and we just have to adjust as a team with him in the lineup.”
UNO HEAD COACH MONTE TOWE
“They just worked us over pretty good. I think LSU is a pretty good basketball team, so to get beat by them, I am not embarrassed. I was discouraged during the course of the game. I really didn’t think we did what we needed to do to try to win the game, no matter what the score was. We’ve got to get better.”
“Everybody got a chance to play. That is the one good thing that came out of this game on our side of the ball. I just told our guys after the game that we have to get better. I still feel like that as we move toward conference play, we are going to be a team that teams are going to have to play good to beat us. We’ve got some tough days ahead of us. Obviously, the most important thing is to travel safely back to Tyler tonight. These guys are going to get on a bus and go right back to Tyler, Texas. They’ll get out of bed tomorrow and the sun will be shining. I am driving back to New Orleans tonight. We’ll go back to work. The beat goes on. I hope we play better against Purdue.”
On Glen Davis …
“He’s something else. Maybe with (Brandon) Bass going to the Hornets, he has picked up his game. He is getting more touches all the time. He passes the ball very well. Once he gets his hands on the ball, it’s his basketball. I like the way he plays the game. He knows how to work the officials. He knows he is going to be involved in a lot of contact plays. He is just a wonderful player. John (Brady) has done a great job recruiting some great, young talent. Give LSU credit. They are a wonderful team. They didn’t shoot the ball well from three, but they really didn’t have to.”