BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball saw their eight-game home winning streak dating back to last year stopped as the Washington Huskies rallied from a 14-point halftime deficit to win, 73-65, Saturday afternoon at the Maravich Assembly Center.
LSU (7-5) now plays its final two non-conference games on the road (Wednesday at Tulane in the New Orleans Arena and Saturday at Texas A&M) before opening Southeastern Conference play on Jan. 9 at home against Mississippi State. Washington (8-4) must fly back to Seattle on Sunday to play again on New Year’s Eve afternoon against Idaho State.
LSU was led in scoring by Chris Johnson with 19 points as he sparked the Tigers strong first half start with 15 points. Marcus Thornton hit for 18, Terry Martin 14 and Anthony Randolph 10. The Tigers shot 44.8 percent for the game (26-of-58), after shooting 51.7 percent (15-of-29) in the first half, including 3-of-7 at the three-point arc. In the second half, LSU shot just 37.9 percent (11-of-29) and was 0-of-6 outside the arc.
Washington was led by the 17 points of Quincy Pondexter off the bench, with Jon Brockman (12 boards) and Tim Morris scoring 15 each and Ryan Appleby, who hero was Pete Maravich, scoring 12. Washington shot 60.7 percent half (17-of-28, 3-of-6 from the arc) as they went on two long scoring runs to take and eventually extend the lead. For the game the Huskies were 28-of-61 overall and 3-of-12 from the arc.
The Tigers still were out rebounded in the contest but held their own through much of the game, out rebounded only five, 38-33 and that was the offensive rebound difference of five, 14-9.
Morris and Pondexter combined for 22 second-half points to lead the Huskies charge as they won for the second straight year against the Tigers.
Washington trailed by 16 points late in the first half and took their first lead of the day on a 3-pointer by Appleby that put the score at 49-47 with 11:10 left in the game. The game went back-and-forth, and was tied three more times, before Washington took the lead for good. A three-point play and field goal by Pondexter, followed by another 3-pointer from Appleby gave the Huskies a 61-53 edge. Brockman added a foul shot before a short-lived LSU rally in the waning minutes of the game.
LSU started strong, making seven of its 11 field-goal attempts to go ahead 17-7. The Tigers led 41-27 at halftime.
Washington scored 12 straight points after the break, while LSU missed nine shots and turned the ball over three times during that stretch.
LSU HEAD COACH JOHN BRADY
Opening statement…
“It’s in this team to play excellent and outstanding. It’s also in this team to get away from what go them to have success in a game and I have to get them out of that somehow. From a concentration and execution standpoint in the second half we just weren’t quite there, but if in the first eight minutes [of the second half] you go 0 for 9 and you get the ball to the guy or two that you want to get it to and you can’t get fouled or make a basket it makes it extremely difficult. I thought they physically picked up their defensive play a little bit and they started throwing the ball inside to us and they either wore us down or we didn’t respond. I don’t know what the answer is for that. We didn’t respond physically to what they did. We just got away from some of the things we did in the first half and I thought the energy level we created in the first half we weren’t able to establish in the second half.
“We’ve got to find a way to play better consistently throughout a game. This certainly was a tale of two halves, in my opinion. They stepped it up from a physical standpoint and we didn’t match it. We’re trying but we just didn’t match their intensity level in the second half from a physical standpoint.
“The first half, we were as good as we can be and we need to learn to extend that throughout the course of a game.”
On the team’s inability to make shots in the second half…
“I don’t know how to explain that, honestly. I thought we got the shots we wanted. We ran some things and got the ball into the post a little bit. We miss shots around the goal and don’t get fouled and we miss a layup or two. I guess that will sap your energy a little bit. Then they make some baskets up close and hit a shot or two and all of a sudden the game is on. We don’t recapture what we had in the first half. We didn’t reward ourselves by making some shots.
“When the depth we have is not sufficient, it wears you down mentally, I suppose. I thought we got the ball where we wanted to get it, but we weren’t able to score. Mentally, that might have something to do with not being able to create the energy defensively that we had in the first half.
“We have to play like we did in the first 20 minutes because that’s as good as we can do. When their team stepped up physically I thought we just lost the energy level.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
G Marcus Thornton
On how the team struggled in the second half…
“They came out more intense than us in the second half. We just slacked off a little bit, instead of going back out with the same intensity.”
On what went on in the locker room at halftime…
“We were fired up and knew we had to come out with the same intensity. We knew they were going to try and get it to their big men and let them go to work. We tried to do the same but unfortunately we came out flat and had to play catch up after a while.”
On how the lack of depth has affected the team’s second half struggles this season…
“At times we get tired but we know we have to suck it up and go back out there. We just need to get stronger and more physical.”
On how the team struggled in the second half…
“They came out more physical than we did in the second half like they wanted the game more. We just have to learn to defend against that and be more physical ourselves.”
On the team’s struggles to maintain a first half lead recently…
“We come out fighting in the first half. We come out strong and everybody wants to compete. When we get the big lead and go into halftime, guys tend to relax and come out in the second half and don’t fight like we did in the first half.”
“We have to pump each other up at halftime and make sure we go out there and keep fighting in the second half. You can’t just play 15, 20 or 35 minutes ? it’s a 40 minute game. We have to keep fighting the whole time. At the end of the game we can’t just rely on one or two people. We have to know that everybody on the court can do something.”
WASHINGTON HEAD COACH LORENZO ROMAR QUOTES
Opening statement…
“Great gut-check win for us. It’s one thing to do this at home; it’s another thing to do it on the road against an SEC opponent. I couldn’t be more proud of our guys. Questions continue to come up: what about your next road trip? I know we had a rough first half. We couldn’t make a shot. We were thinking too much about their ability to block shots, but we came back in the second half and went right at them offensively. We came back and did what we were supposed to do on the road, and I think that is great progress from a month ago when we were in Oklahoma.”
On the halftime mood…
“There wasn’t a whole lot of strategy to talk about in this particular game. We felt we were getting great shots. We just felt that maybe we were not putting forth the type of effort on the defensive end that we should have. We allowed 41 points, and they shot 52 percent. It was just a matter of going stronger to the basket in the second half, and that’s what we focused on. I think our guys came out and did that.”
On utilizing a smaller lineup in the second half…
“Their height is a little misleading offensively because those guys weren’t posting up a lot. Early on, it hurt us because those guys were picking and popping. We went smaller with Quincy (Pondexter) in there. He could guard those guys when they picked and popped. Both of them were hard covers for a slow guy. It seemed like, height wise, we were smaller, but it gave us an advantage.”