BATON ROUGE — The 13th-ranked LSU men’s basketball team found some its outside shooting touch and in the process overcame a stubborn Auburn team, 65-63, Saturday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center to keep its home Southeastern Conference winning streak alive for another day.
The win was LSU’s 18th consecutive win at the Assembly Center over a conference opponent dating back to the final home game of the 2004 season. LSU was 8-0 at home in both the 2005 and 2006 seasons and this was the first home SEC game of the year for the Tigers.
LSU is now 12-4 on the season (1-1 in the SEC) while Auburn loses its second straight in the league to fall to 11-7 and 1-2.
Terry Martin after going 0-for-5 in the previous two games for LSU after a strong start after transferring from Texas Tech had an LSU-best 23 points, hitting 8-of-16 shots and 5-of-9 from the arc in 34 minutes in his first LSU start. The only down side was 2-of-6 at the free throw line, leaving a couple of points on the line late that could have cost LSU.
Also in double figures was Tasmin Mitchell, who played just six first half minutes with three fouls, who had 12 points, while Glen Davis, stymied by Auburn’s defense much of the day, still had 11 points and 11 rebounds. Garrett Temple equaled his career high with seven assists and had four blocks.
Rasheem Barrett had 18 points to lead Auburn with Quan Prowell getting 12 and Josh Dollard 11.
After hitting just 12-of-42 field goals in the first half Tuesday night at Alabama, the Tigers were able to hit just 10-of-32 field goals in the opening 20 minutes and Auburn took advantage of 10 LSU turnovers to take a 32-28 half time lead.
The game was tied three times in the second half, the last at 47-47 on three free throws by Kelvin Lewis. LSU’s Davis made a basket with 7:42 remaining on the next possession to give LSU the lead for good at 49-47. A field goal by Martin and a foul shot by Mitchell pushed LSU’s advantage to five.
Auburn reduced its deficit to one point twice in the final 3 1/2 minutes. After a basket by Barrett left Auburn behind 57-56, field goals by Davis and Dameon Mason gave LSU a five-point lead.
A 3-pointer by Barrett left Auburn behind 64-63 with 24 seconds remaining. Auburn called its final timeout and LSU was able to pass the ball around until the 14-second mark when Martin was fouled. He hit one of two foul shots and Auburn had hits shot. Lewis had a good luck at a three to win, but it rimmed out and the Tigers grabbed the rebound, securing the win.
In the first half, Auburn scored 14 points off LSU turnovers and made 10 of 11 free throws.
After falling behind 7-0 in the first 90 seconds, LSU tied the score with 12:22 remaining before halftime on a field goal by Davis. Mitchell replaced Davis, who had a cut, and made a foul shot to complete a three-point play and give LSU its only first-half lead at 17-16.
LSU then scored just three points in the next nine minutes. Two free throws by Prowell completed a 14-2 run and gave Auburn a 30-19 advantage. Tack Minor, Martin and Temple hit 3-pointers to help LSU reduce its deficit to four at the break.
LSU HEAD COACH JOHN BRADY QUOTES
Opening statement…
“After watching tape on Auburn I knew they were a good basketball team and were well coached. I think Jeff (Lebo) does a great job with his players. In last year’s game with ten minutes to go it was a two-point game. With five minutes to go it was a six-point game. We had to hit a shot with under ten seconds to beat them. They have four out of five starters from that team back and we don’t have as much experience returning as they do so I knew it was going to be a difficult game. I thought we missed several opportunities to expand the lead. We still don’t make plays well against teams that change their defense a lot. They change their defense every couple of trips down the floor. When you are not a good playmaking team you struggle sometimes with making the right decision. One of the things that gave us an opportunity to win that game was the fact that we defended them well. They only shot 39 percent for the game and only 38 percent in the second half. We didn’t foul them in the second half as much as we did in the first. Regardless of our inefficiencies on offense, we were still able to win the game.”
On Terry Martin…
“I was pleased with Terry Martin‘s play but he is going to meet me back here at 7 o’clock to shoot free throws. Any offense that is structured properly must have the right players shooting the ball and those shooters must take quality shots. Terry Martin is a good shooter and I thought for the most part he was taking good shots. Whether he is making them or missing them he has to be encouraged to shoot them.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
On it being a survival game…
“We talked after the game and all that really matters is the W in the SEC. we have to get home wins in SEC play. Coach Brady said we need those kind of games and that is true. We had one like that last year, the last game of the SEC when we played Ole Miss it came down to the wire and we beat them by three points. They are going to come in here on Wednesday and it is going to be another tough grab and slap game. We are going to have to be strong with the ball and try to limit our turnovers.”
On why Auburn gives LSU so much trouble…
“Their coach does a great job and their defenses changes every 10 to 15 seconds. The 1-3-1 defense caused us trouble at West Virginia. It is a defense that you don’t see often. Basically, they try to get turnovers and get easy shots. They try to make our big men guard outside the three point line which is another thing they do differently than everybody else.”
On Terry Martin‘s play…
“Terry did great. We needed him in the second half. He wasn’t hitting in the first half as much. He came out in the second half and broke it open. They stayed in their 1-3-1 defense, but he was still hitting the shots. Those 23 points were real big for us, especially only winning by two.”
On his focus in getting his shots to fall…
“I just kept telling myself to keep shooting and it had to fall sooner or later. I just stayed positive and my teammates stayed positive with me too and that helped.”
On if starting helped his mindset in the game…
“It helped my confidence a little. When I get in the game I am warmed up already and it helped with that.”
On how he had to play after getting into foul trouble…
“I had to be real smart. I had to start thinking that I need to be on the floor. I had to back off my man and try not to give too much body contact, but still give body contact. I had to rebound the ball strong.”
On it being a survival game…
“A ‘W’ is all we wanted. No matter how ugly it looked. It didn’t matter that we couldn’t execute. As long as we came out with the ‘W.’ That is all that really matter at the end of the day.”
AUBURN HEAD COACH JEFF LEBO
“We battled in every facet of the game. We were better today. The most important facet was to score. We did a lot of good things out there. We kept our poise, played with some toughness. We executed the gameplan very well. We did a good of a job as anybody at neutralizing (Glen) Davis. I was proud of the way we played. We had a shot to win, and I thought that thing was halfway down in there when it came out. We did some good things executing wise. They took the lead by five, and we battled back on the road in a tough place against a good team. We have to get some consistency now. We don’t know what we are going to get day-in and day-out. We competed against a ranked team on the road. That’s the best I think we’ve played on the road against a high-level league team.”
AUBURN PLAYER QUOTES
G Kelvin Lewis
On the final shot …
“I couldn’t really see when he jumped. He jumped at me. When I let it go, I kind of leaned and saw that it didn’t go in.”
On playing well against a ranked team on the road …
“Our whole game plan changed at practice after the Kentucky loss. We found out that we had to get tougher physically and mentally in order to do well in this league. We got a lot better. We know that if we push ourselves, we are as good as anybody in the country. We just have to keep working hard in practice.”