BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team hit 11 three-pointers and close to 90 percent at the free throw line as the seventh-ranked Tigers came out ready to play in downing Nicholls State, 96-42, in the opening night contest at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Tigers, 1-0, will have little time to rest as they will now face Louisiana-Monroe at 3 p.m. on Sunday in a game to be regionally televised on CST. Tickets for the game are available online at www.LSUsports.net. and those fans presenting a ticket stub from Saturday’s LSU-Ole Miss football game will be able to buy an $11 ticket for just $5.
LSU shot 58.5 percent from the field (31-of-53) and 11-of-19 from the arc (57.9) percent in routing the Colonels (0-5). LSU had hit just 2-of-14 trey attempts combined during the two exhibition wins over EA Sports and Louisiana College. LSU also was strong from the free throw line, converting 23-of-26 opportunities or 88.5 percent.
Four Tigers were in double figures with a rare three players tying for game scoring honors. Glen Davis, Darnell Lazare and Garrett Temple all had 16 points for LSU with Tasmin Mitchell close behind with 14 points. Other stat sheet notables were the 16 points for Temple was a career high, featuring four treys for the second time in his career; a first career double-double for the senior Lazare with 10 rebounds and Tack Minor with six assists and just two turnovers in 14 minutes.
LSU’s point guard trio of Temple, Minor and Voogd had a combined 13 assists and just five turnovers. In all, LSU had 25 assists on its 31 baskets.
Nicholls State had just one player in double figures, Adonis Gray, who had been scoring well over 20 points in his four games and posted 33 Tuesday against Pepperdine was held to just 10 points.
LSU outrebounded the Colonels 49-27 and held Nicholls State to just 13-of-63 from the floor (20.6 percent) and 4-of-30 from the arc.
The Tigers got off to a good start, hitting four three-pointers in the first 10 minutes, including one by Davis at the top of the key that gave LSU a 20-11 lead. The lead went to double figures for good at the 8:10 mark on one of Temple’s treys as the Tigers outscored the Colonels 24-7 over the last 10 minutes to go up 44-18 at the intermission.
“A number of our guys made some nice shots,” said LSU Coach John Brady. “Garrett (Temple) made some nice shots and like I said before, Garrett and Tasmin Mitchell have to be able to make some shots from the perimeter for us to be the kind of team we want to be. I was happy that they were able to do that tonight. Overall I felt good about what we were trying to do.”
LSU HEAD COACH JOHN BRADY QUOTES
Opening statement…
“I thought the first half we played pretty well. I will start with what we need to improve on. We turned the ball over too much against their zone defense. I think it is because we rushed a little bit offensively. I called a timeout at the five minute mark and told the team ?Everybody has shot the ball except Glen (Davis).’ We need to make sure we get him the ball and let him shoot. I know they didn’t do it intentionally, but I think they are all eager to do well. The point is we were really rushing ourselves in the beginning of the game. I think we settled down and put together some good defensive possessions. A number of our guys made some nice shots. Garrett (Temple) made some nice shots and like I said before Garrett and Tasmin Mitchell have to be able to make some shots from the perimeter for us to be the kind of team we want to be. I was happy that they were able to do that tonight. Even after we got a big lead, I didn’t want the game to turn into a one pass and then shot kind of game. I told Alex (Farrer) and Chris (Johnson) ?You guys have to show me you can execute the offense to earn playing time.’ We tried to execute down the stretch even though we were ahead and I think we did that for the most part. We play two good teams in the next week. Overall I felt good about what were trying to do. Besides the turnovers I thought we played well considering it was the first game.”
On how the team’s perimeter shooting improved…
“Well in our first two exhibition games neither team played a zone defense against us. EA Sports played man defense and Louisiana College really showed some courage and tried to get out and pressure us. When other teams look at our stat sheet and see we made 11 of 19 three point shots tonight, they will start thinking they can’t just use zone defense against us and they will have to mix it up.”
Nicholls State Head Coach, J.P. Piper
On the positives in the game …
“You tell me what the positives are. This one was tough to sit through. We talked about the fact that we executed our offense and got shots, and we’ve got to get to a point where we knock some of those shots down. We can’t shoot 13 percent behind the 3-point line and 20 percent from the field and expect to have a chance to win the game. Four for thirty behind the arc, we expect to be able to make those shots. Now, I think LSU probably had something to do with that. They’re bigger, quicker, stronger than what we’re used to competing against, and the margin of time to get your shot off is so much smaller than what we’re used to. But if we expect to become a good basketball team we’ve got to come in here against this kind of pressure and be able to shoot the ball a little better than we did. I’m a little concerned that we’re still not quite right from the trip. If they’re half as tired as I am, and my body still hasn’t caught back up to Central time.”
On why the shots did not fall tonight …
“So I don’t know; I don’t have an explanation for why we shot it so poorly, but the fact that we got the looks we got in the spots that we got them is what we wanted to do. We just didn’t make them, and we’ve got to get to a point where we can consistently count on making some of those. And I think the outside opens up the inside for us. It’s kind of the approach.”
On the positive stats tonight …
“You know the kind of things I look for on the stat sheet. We out-rebounded them on the offensive glass. Of course that has a lot to do with the fact that we didn’t make many of them (shots), so it was a lot of opportunities to get rebounds. We were close on the steals. They had 18 turnovers; we only had 16 turnovers, so there were a few things there that were positive for us. But other than that it was a good old fashioned tail whipping, and hopefully we’ll learn from it and get better in the future as a result of what we experienced tonight. It should light that competitive fire in us if there was any doubt going into tonight.”