BATON ROUGE — A 26-3 run over the final nine minutes of the half, including 22 straight points, propelled the LSU Tigers to an easy 91-60 win over Northwestern State Sunday to close out the first weekend of the LSU Invitational at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Tigers are now 3-0 to start the season for the first time since 2005-06 and Northwestern evened back its record at 2-2. After the first weekend of play in the five-team, four-game two weekend round-robin event that resumes on Friday, LSU is 2-0, Centenary, Troy and Northwestern State at 1-1 and Alcorn State is 0-2.
Marcus Thornton had 20 first half points and got his shooting touch going, hitting 10-of-16 points including three treys to finish with 25 points in 22 minutes. Bo Spencer had 10 points. Storm Warren off the bench led the Tigers with seven rebounds, Chris Bass had six assists and Chris Johnson four blocks as LSU had double figure blocks for the second straight game (10).
LSU shot 50 percent from the field compared to 34.4 percent for the Demons, who shot just 7-of-31 in the first half. LSU finished 7-of-14 from the arc and had its worst game of the season at the free throw line, hitting for just 62.9 percent (22-of-35).
Northwestern State was led by Devin White and Dwayne Watkins with eight points each.
The Tigers jumped quickly on the Demons for eight points in the first two minutes as Chris Johnson got a layup, Garrett Temple a free throw, a layup by Marcus Thornton and a three-pointer by Bo Spencer.
The margin helped the Tigers as both teams substituted four and five at a time several times during the first 20 minutes. Northwestern State cut the margin to five on a field goal by Williams Mosley, 10-5, but LSU advanced the margin to nine, 17-8 with 12:54 on Thornton’s first three-pointer of the season.
Michael McConathy scored on a layup for the Demons that made it 22-16 with 9:01 to go and the Demons would not score again until the 1:27 mark to stop a 21-0 run.
An intentional foul on Garrett Temple as he went for a breakaway layup allowed LSU to get the lead to double digits and Thornton’s free throws with 5:49 left put him in to double figures early and gave LSU a 30-16 lead.
The Tigers then came down and forced Northwestern State to throw the ball away after a lengthy possession bringing all the coaching staff on their feet in applause and drawing the approval of the Maravich Center crowd. The crowd responded more on the next possession when Thornton slammed to expand the lead which reached 34-16 at the 3:53 mark.
At that point, LSU was 12-of-24 from the field, 3-of-4 from the arc and 7-of-10 at the line. For the third straight game, the Tigers were holding the opponent in check from the field, as the Demons were just 6-of-27 and 1-of-8 from the arc with just two assists and 11 turnovers.
LSU led at the half, 48-19.
With two straight games with strong starts, Coach Trent Johnson talked about the intensity difference in the first three games.
“This is a group that wants to play well,” he said. “They want to do well. They want to win. They are doing a good job of continually coming out in practice and when we address something we think is wrong, they come out and work at it. As long as we continue to do that, I think we are going to have a chance, I really do. When I say have a chance, the bottom line is to beat the people we are supposed to beat and hopefully pop up and beat somebody everybody thinks we aren’t supposed to beat. That is what this thing is all about. We just need to continue to work at it and try to get better. Playing and competing at a high level with intensity is a start. The other stuff is correctible. Whether you have a breakdown defensively or missed assignments on offense that is correctible.”
The win was the 68th consecutive against Louisiana schools at the Maravich Center dating back to Dec. 8, 1988.
The LSU Invitational resumes Friday at 4:30 p.m. with two games as Northwestern State takes on Alcorn State and the LSU Tigers host Centenary in a 7 p.m. tilt. LSU’s other game next week is Sunday at 6 p.m. when the Tigers host Troy.
LSU HEAD COACH TRENT JOHNSON QUOTES
Opening statement …
“We obviously had a lot of the Northwestern State team and it showed in terms of intensity and how hard the kids played right from the start. I thought they sustained it throughout the game. I can nit-pick certain breakdowns here and there, but for us to come out the second game in a row and play that hard with that level of intensity, it is a start. We are getting better in that regard.”
On the amount of blocked shots by LSU …
“In all honesty, I said last game I’d like to see less blocked shots and more five second calls. We are breaking down and letting guys get in the lane and I thought Northwestern State did pretty good job in the first half of taking advantage of that. They would get in the lane and we would have one or two guys blocking a shot, and when that happened and we missed the block, there is an offensive rebound. When you look at our stats in the first three games, we have too many guys rotating over and trying to block the shot. You don’t get a block and you get an offensive rebound, you get an extra possession or two.”
On Marcus Thornton‘s performance …
“The ball went down for him, but again, I’m not worried about Marcus’ points or Marcus’ scoring. The thing that has impressed me about Marcus is that he is committed defensively and exerting a lot of energy. I’m not talking about him getting steals and going the other way. He is fighting though screens with a physical presence, he is closing out the shooters and he is rotating over and helping his teammates. That is what I’m encouraged about. Marcus Thornton is going to score the basketball, he is going to get opportunities. Sometimes in this game, people think that if you don’t have 15 or 16 points and you don’t make a great block or those types of things that you aren’t playing well. He is doing a good job.”
On the intensity of the team …
“Again, this is a group that wants to play well. They want to do well. They want to win. They are doing a good job of continually coming out in practice and when we address something we think is wrong, they come out and work at it. As long as we continue to do that, I think we are going to have a chance, I really do. When I say have a chance, the bottom line is to beat the people we are supposed to beat and hopefully pop up and beat somebody everybody thinks we aren’t supposed to beat. That is what this thing is all about. We just need to continue to work at it and try to get better. Playing and competing at a high level with intensity is a start. The other stuff is correctible. Whether you have a breakdown defensively or missed assignments on offense, that is correctible.”
NORTHWESTERN STATE HEAD COACH MIKE MCCONATHY
On LSU’s 21-0 run …
“We just kept taking bad shots … Anytime you get into games like this, you can’t allow that to happen. They really didn’t do anything in the half-court offense; it was all in transition defense that we didn’t pick up. They (LSU) were relaxed and were knocking down all those shots. They’re a very physical ball team. It was probably one of the more physical games that I’ve been involved in.”
On his team’s defense …
“We kept getting beat on our cut presses to where they were getting to the middle. There were stretches where we defended and got after it. We had a little lull there in the second half where the kids were kind of in a trance, but we don’t quit and we do all the things we’re supposed to do.”