BATON ROUGE — Senior Night was good for the LSU Tigers for the ninth straight year as the Tigers downed South Carolina, 61-52, in the final regular season game of the 2007 season Saturday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
This year’s lone senior to be honored was Darnell Lazare who was honored in pregame ceremonies and played 30 minutes, scoring 12 points with eight rebounds. Lazare left the game to a prolonged standing ovation in the final minute.
The Tigers finish the regular season with a 16-14 record, virtually clinching the team’s sixth consecutive winning record. LSU finishes the SEC schedule at 5-11 after winning two of the final three league games. LSU, the sixth seed in the Western Division, will play Eastern Division No. 3 seed Tennessee, Thursday night at 8:45 p.m. CST in the final game of the first day of the Southeastern Conference Tournament. South Carolina falls to 14-15 and 4-12 in the SEC.
Tasmin Mitchell again continued his strong play with 21 points, hitting 7-of-11 field goals and all seven free throw attempts, while Glen Davis had 11 points in 25 minutes off the bench. In fact, Davis scored nine of his points during the final nine minutes to help LSU finish the game on the plus side.
Davis, returning from a right quadriceps strain that had sidelined him for three games, started slow but regained his dominant form in the paint while scoring seven points during a decisive 9-0 run that put LSU in the lead for good.
Tre’ Kelley led South Carolina with 19 points, the eighth straight game he scored at least that many. He hit a pair of difficult driving layups in traffic and made a pair of free throws during a 13-0 run that gave the Gamecocks a brief 42-41 lead with 10:48 to go.
LSU quickly regained the lead when Mitchell found Dameon Mason going to the basket for an alley-oop lay-in. Then Davis took over the game, scoring the next seven points on a free throw and three inside baskets, one following his own offensive rebound.
South Carolina, which shot only 32.2 percent, went 8:15 without a point during LSU’s run.
Davis didn’t score his first basket until 3:49 remained in the first half. He played well defensively, however, coming up with a pair of steals that led to transition points for the Tigers on Garrett Temple‘s breakaway dunk and Mitchell’s free throws.
Mitchell scored 11 of his points in the first half, helping LSU build a lead as large as nine before Dominique Archie’s three-pointer pulled South Carolina to within 33-27 at halftime.
LSU HEAD COACH JOHN BRADY QUOTES
Opening statement…
“It was great to win that game. It meant a lot to our team to be able to do that. What I feel the best about was our ability to rebound the ball and our defensive field goal percentage. I have always felt that those two statistics were statistics of effort. They show how hard you play and defend. We are not the prettiest team offensively sometimes, but we made enough baskets and got the ball where we needed to late in the game. I was glad to see Glen (Davis) get back in a rhythm of playing again. He made some baskets for us that we needed down the stretch. I thought Tasmin (Mitchell) had a good game. Garrett (Temple) defended well again. Some people are touting Tre’ Kelly as the conference player of the year because of his ability to score and dominate a game. He was only 6 for 17 tonight. We did a nice job on all of their players defensively, particularly Tre’ Kelly. South Carolina scored 90 points in their last game against Vanderbilt. We also did a good job of getting to the foul line. If you don’t shoot the ball well from the perimeter you need to shoot well at the foul line. We have a little momentum going right now and have played pretty well the last couple of weeks. This win was a good thing from a confidence stand point. We will have two really good practices Monday and Tuesday and from what I understand we will play Tennessee Thursday night.”
On how Glen Davis played tonight…
“I don’t think he is in great shape right now. After the Auburn game, we took off Thursday, but coach (John) Treloar worked Glen out in the afternoon and at night. He went through the practice on Friday and played today. The team will take off tomorrow but Glen and coach Treloar will work out in the afternoon. He will have two hard workouts on Monday and Tuesday, and that should get him close to where he needs to be. I assume he will do everything possible to play against Tennessee because even though he played last time against Tennessee, he didn’t do a whole lot. He understands that and hopefully he has a chance to get some redemption. He should have some incentive to get in the best shape possible. I was pleased with how he approached tonight’s game. We didn’t start him either half. I thought he improved as the game went along and hopefully he will continue to improve with some more practice time.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
On the quick start he had in the game …
“It was real important that we came out with a lot of energy, especially me because I wanted to win the last (home) game. So I just wanted to do my part and play hard the whole time.”
On the emotion of playing his final home game …
“To be quite honest, it really hasn’t set in, and I had some good memories so I am going to miss it a lot.”
On what was said by Coach Brady at midcourt during pregame ceremonies …
“It was just how he appreciated how I carried myself over the past four years. It was just a lot of love and respect going on the court.”
SOUTH CAROLINA HEAD COACH DAVE ODOM
Opening Statement
“I thought we hurt ourselves badly in the first half. We made what I would consider maybe four or five unforced turnovers. I know Garrett Temple was on the receiving of at least two of those. Those turnovers turned into dunks on the other end. Those are possessions that you can’t defend on defense. I really thought that was the difference in the game, the unforced turnovers, and I thought suspect shot selection in the first half. I thought we took some poor shots. Those are two things that are operating on a very small margin of error. We can’t take bad shots, and we cannot turn the ball over. We talked about that at halftime and did cut the turnovers out. I don’t think we made but two in the second half, and one of those was on the last play of the game. We did correct it but it was too little too late.”
On the presence of Glen Davis …
“With Glen Davis available tonight, it makes their team all-together different and much more dominant inside. Yet, they still retain the ability to stretch you outside. I think Tasmin Mitchell is one of the best players in this league. He’s an all-purpose player, an all-court player. He can play inside. He can play outside. When you add Glen Davis to the lineup as part of that tandem a team like ours makes it very difficult to guard them. We tried to answer with Tre’ (Kelley) or one of our own, but we just couldn’t find another guy to play with them in the second half.”