BATON ROUGE — Just eight days before Christmas, both LSU and UL-Lafayette were in a giving mood. The teams combined for 38 turnovers and 37 fouls in a 81-62 LSU victory on Saturday evening in the Maravich Center.
Members of the Geaux Zone can login after the post-game radio show to watch the full-game archived audio and video.
LSU (6-1) did not trail after the first 93 seconds of the game, but also couldn’t shake the Ragin’ Cajuns until the Tigers scored the game’s final 13 points in the last 6:08.
Glen Davis led four Tigers in double figures scoring with 20 points and matched his season average with 12 rebounds. He was 9 of 17 from the floor with five steals and a blocked shot.
LSU’s Darrel Mitchell struggled from the field (5 of 16) but made three three-pointers and all four of his free throw attempts to finish with 17 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
Forward Tasmin Mitchell (16) and Darnell Lazare (12) were also in double figures for LSU. Reserve forward Tyrus Thomas scored nine points and had nine rebounds.
The Tigers shot 42 percent from the field (32 of 76), and made 13 of 19 free throws.
UL-Lafayette (2-6), which lost for the fourth time in five road games in 2005, shot only 39 percent (22 of 56) from the field but gave LSU fits with its zone defense for a majority of the game.
New Orleans native and Auburn transfer Dwayne Mitchell scored a career-high 27 points to lead UL-Lafayette. The 6-5 senior guard was 10 of 20 from the field, made 6-of-8 free throws and had a game-high 16 rebounds. His aggressive play also led to a game-high eight turnovers.
No other ULL player finished in double figures scoring.
Darrel Mitchell hit a pair of three-pointers in the first 90 seconds of the contest to give LSU a lead it would not relinquish and spark an 8-0 LSU run.
By the first media timeout at 15:04, the teams combined to make 11 of 16 shots including 4-of-5 three pointers, as LSU led 15-12.
The Tigers extended the lead to seven, 26-19, on a fast-break layup by Darrel Mitchell off a give-and-go pass from Thomas.
With 18 fouls committed in the game’s first 11 minutes, neither team was able to execute its half-court offense and the combined field goal percentage dropped to 47 percent. The Tigers continued to maintain the lead, 30-27, by making 8-of-10 free throws.
Led by Dwayne Mitchell’s 11 points, the Ragin’ Cajuns stayed within four points at the half, 41-37.
The Tigers opened the second half with a 15-6 run in the first five minutes, extending the lead to 56-43.
Just as the game looked to be in LSU’s full control, ULL rolled off eight-straight in two minutes to pull with five, 56-51.
Still leading by five, LSU ran an alley-oop out of a timeout to start a 6-0 run that pushed the lead to 11, 68-57, with just more than seven minutes to play.
The Tigers earned a double-figure lead on a jumper by Tasmin Mitchell with 5:00 left, as ULL would go scoreless for the remainder of the game.
LSU’s Tack Minor, who served a university suspension in the fall semester is on the bench but did not dress for the game.
The Tigers return to action on Monday at 7 p.m. against Northern Iowa in the first of a three-game Las Vegas Holiday Classic. After this contest in the Maravich Center, games two and three will take place at Valley High in Las Vegas.
Members of the Geaux Zone on LSUsports.net can watch live video of the Northern Iowa game, or listen to the LSU Sports Radio Network broadcast beginning at 6:30 p.m. CST.
LSU HEAD COACH JOHN BRADY
Opening Statement…
“First of all, I think ULL is a good team. I really do. I think they’re going to have a good year. They lost a couple of games early, but they’re starting to play better. They didn’t play too well their first couple of outings, but Oral Roberts is a good team that they handled pretty easily. They’re a good team.”
“The second thing is our team offensively, we had spurts of good play. But what we did do, and I told the team after the game, if you defend like we defended the second half, hold that team to 25 points and a poor field goal stat, and then if you rebound the ball like we did and outrebound that team by 30 and get 25 offensive rebounds and you defend, it really doesn’t matter some nights what kind of inconsistencies of offense that you have because you will have a chance to win the game. That’s what our team showed tonight.”
“We defended quite well in the half court after we kept giving them layups and our turnovers that led to baskets. We took that out of the game the second half and made them beat us in the half court and were able to make them miss. Then we just rebounded the ball, particularly offensively we just went back and got it, back and got it. I was proud of our team for just being tough and grinding it out. That was a good experience for our team tonight to be able to play inconsistent at times offensively but be able to defend in the half court and go back and rebound the ball.
“We just need to keep getting better, and I think we took a step tonight to win a different type of game — one that we just had to dig down and find something within us to win. I like those kind of games, a rough-and-tumble type of contest. We were able to win it tonight.”
“The difficult thing we have now is to turn around and play a very, very, very good Northern Iowa team Monday. They’re well-coached, experienced, can execute, can shoot the ball from the perimeter, a lot like the West Virginia team that’s extremely well-coached and runs schemes and patterns and takes advantage of mistakes defensively. So, this was a good game for us going into that game. The thing we have to be careful about is our players getting enough rest to be able to go as best they can Monday night.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
On his offensive rebounding…
“Everything else wasn’t going well for me. I helped my team out on the offensive boards. I tried to crash the boards hard. Big Baby (Glen Davis) and I went to the boards and we succeeded.”
On what he needs to improve…
“I need to cut down on my turnovers. I had six or seven turnovers. A lot of small basic turnovers that I shouldn’t have had. I didn’t feel I was up to par because of my turnovers.”
On the team’s rebounding…
“We are a bunch of athletic guys, a lot of tall guys. Our guys have tremendous heart and character. We just want to go out and pound the glass. We know we are an athletic team and we just want to take that to our advantage. We just want to go out there and attack the boards as much as we can.”
On Lafayette keeping it close after halftime…
“They made a run, which we expected them to do because they are a good team. It was a matter of how we were going to handle that run. I think we did a good job defensively of stopping them and we did a good job of running our offense.”
On their upcoming opponent Northern Iowa…
“They are somewhat similar to West Virginia. They are different type of team then what we faced tonight, which I think is a good thing because it’s a transition and something we are going to have to handle.”
ULL HEAD COACH ROBERT LEE
Opening Statement…
“The bottom line in this ballgame was offensive rebounds. They really dominated us on the glass in the second half. Of course losing Chris Cameron was a tremendous blow to our team. (Michael) Southall wasn’t 100 percent so he really couldn’t play. Those are our two inside players, so it became very difficult for us on the boards. But for 34 minutes out team really battled and it was a four or five-point game with six minutes to go and then we can’t make a basket after that. Then they get I think seven or eight straight offensive rebounds and put-backs after that. I loved the effort of our guys, especially Dwayne Mitchell. I don’t know what else you can say about that guy. He’s an unbelievable player. I think the guys who came in off the bench, both Adam James and Valentino Hart, did a very good job. But the bottom line was we couldn’t get any offensive rebounds or defensive ones while giving them too many offensive rebounds.”
On Chris Cameron’s injury status…
“Chris looks to have a dislocated shoulder, so he will probably be out an extended period of time.”
On slowing down Darrel Mitchell by putting Dwayne Mitchell on him…
“We started out the game and Darrel Mitchell makes those first two 3-pointers and a couple more baskets so we made the switch later in the first half. Once Dwayne (Mitchell) got on him we slowed him down. Once he slowed him down it gave us the opportunity to really get in the ballgame. Dwayne did a great job overall, defensively and offensively. Just the effort he gave was great. We just got beat too bad on the boards. With the size disadvantage that we had without Cameron and Southall, we just couldn’t compete on the glass with those guys.”
ULL PLAYER QUOTES
G Dwayne Mitchell
On how Chris Cameron getting hurt affected the game…
“I think we were still in the game when Chris (Cameron) went down. It was our effort level that went down. After Chris came out the game, a lot of people started relaxing, and we needed to step our intensity level up and we didn’t do it tonight.”
On staying close until late in the game…
“We were in the game right where we wanted to be. We were close with about five or six minutes in the game. We wanted to keep the game close between 10 and 12 points. We had a couple of guys who were injured so I tried to take the load on and put everybody on my back, but I couldn’t carry it tonight.”