BATON ROUGE — The streaks are alive after LSU rallied from a seven-point halftime deficit and then made some key plays down the stretch to defeat McNeese State Monday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center by a score of 62-59.
The Tigers won for the 72nd straight time against Louisiana competition in the PMAC in a streak that started, ironically, on Dec. 8, 1988, when the Tigers edged McNeese by two points. The win also was the 12th straight for LSU in the building overall dating back to the final three games of last season and is now the 10th longest win streak in the 38 years of the Maravich Center.
LSU will face Washington State of the Pac-10 Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. at the Maravich Center in a nationally-televised game on ESPN2. Tickets for the game are available at LSUsports.net and beginning at 11:30 a.m. at the upper ticket windows of the PMAC.
The Tigers used a 16-0 run to start the second half to take back control of the game after playing a sluggish first half that saw McNeese go to the dressing room with a 28-21 lead.
The half started with a layup by Chris Johnson and a free throw to cut it to 28-24. McNeese missed a shot and Marcus Thornton scored on a layup to make it 28-26. After a missed three by the Cowboys, Bo Spencer was fouled and hit two free throws to tie it at 28-28 with 18:50 to go in the game.
After four missed shots by McNeese on one possession, Johnson on the other end got a dunk to give LSU the lead for good at 30-28 at the 18:22 mark. A free throw by Thornton and a later layup with another free throw increased the margin to 34-28 and a minute later a three pointer by Bo Spencer with 15:54 to go made it 37-28.
It would be 6:36 into the half before the Cowboys would score on a free throw by Stephan Martin.
But it wasn’t the end of the game by any means for LSU, now 9-1 on the year. LSU was up 10, 55-45 with 3:53 to play when McNeese began throwing in threes, cutting it to seven at the 3:39 mark, to six at the 2:29 mark to five on another trey at the 1:55 mark, 59-54 and down to two, 59-57, on a Diego Kapelan three with 35 seconds to play.
LSU made one free throw with 27 seconds left to make it 60-57. A foul led to two McNeese free throws to cut it to 60-59 with 18 seconds left. Thornton was fouled and made one free throw that made it 61-59. Martin tried for a layup on the other end to tie but it was blocked by Johnson with 7.7 to play and Tasmin Mitchell made one free throw to make it 62-59.
LSU went for the foul to prevent the three-point shot and both free throws were missed, the last intentionally and McNeese was never able to get up a three-ball to tie it.
Four Tigers were in double figures for LSU with Marcus Thornton in double figures for a team high sixth straight game with 15 points, while Tasmin Mitchell added 12, Bo Spencer 11 and Chris Johnson 10. Both Mitchell (10 boards) and Thornton (11) had double doubles. McNeese (5-5) got 15 from Kapelan off the bench with Martin getting 14 and John Pichon 10. Kapelan and Martin combined to go 8-of-14 from the three-point arc as the Cowboys were 9-of-15 behind the 20-9 line.
“This was a really good win for us,” said LSU Coach Trent Johnson. “Believe me. We were obviously as a staff and a team was thoroughly impressed by McNeese and worried about them coming in. It was 78-74 last year and we got major, major contributions from guys coming off the bench … That’s a good win for us and McNeese is a good basketball team.”
Coach Johnson also addressed the situation with senior Terry Martin being on the bench for the game in street clothes.
“What I told the team is that I don’t expect guys to be happy they aren’t playing,” he said. “I expect them to understand why they don’t play the minutes they want to play. I expect them to understand their role. All that being said, they need to come back out the next day and work hard and understand that this is a team ? a team ? and that they play as a team and not as individuals. I’m not going to get into a situation where I start talking about playing time and things of that nature, because I’m too sensitive to the kids in general. That is what I told the group and Terry needs to understand that and he needs to understand that, identify his role with the team, accept it and move forward.”
LSU HEAD COACH TRENT JOHNSON QUOTES
Opening statement …
“That was a really good win for us, believe me. We were obviously as a staff and a team was throughout impressed by McNeese and worried about them coming in. It was 78-74 last year and we got major, major contributions from guys coming off the bench. Chris Bass was exceptional in his energy that he brought. I thought Alex Farrer was exceptional. Quintin Thornton was exceptional in the first half. Again, they’re exceptional. When Tasmin (Mitchell) goes out with two and CJ has two that disrupts a lot of what we do offensively and defensively. Those guys kept us within striking distance. Delwan (Graham) came in and had some nice stops and so did Thornton. That’s a good win for us and McNeese is a good basketball team. We are very fortunate to come away with that, but anytime you can win when you aren’t playing well and coming off a hard fought, and it was a hard-fought loss to Texas A&M. As much as I don’t like to go into the past, we lost, but we competed like you wouldn’t believe, I thought, for this group to come that far and compete against a team the caliber of A&M, it speaks volumes. There were five situations, not four, five, where we had one of our guys going into the stands to chase loose balls. We lost that game because we broke down defensively at times and we didn’t shoot the ball well early on. It wasn’t for our lack of toughness. We showed some mental and physical toughness. All that being said, it’s hard. This is the first time for this team being in a situation where they are coming off of a hard-fought loss where they have been committed to something as a team and competed and bought into a system of playing together and to come back against a team like this that we knew could beat us if we didn’t play well. We didn’t play well and we managed to win.”
On what the team is not doing that he feels it should…
“Without nit-picking, I think the bottom line is that we are vulnerable in the post, but I can’t fault their effort. There are certain things we are going to do and that I have to do a better job of getting them help. This thing is not going to be perfect in nine games. The fact of the matter is there is a big drop of experience on this team to the underclassmen, so that takes time. I said this from day one, these freshmen are going to have to come at a faster rate than probably warranted and it’s not fair sometimes. We aren’t perfect. We aren’t perfect right now, but I think specifically we get careless with the ball sometimes. There are way too many unforced turnovers. I’d like to get that handled. Sometimes I think we have guys doing too much trying to win because they want to win opposed to being patient.”
On why Terry Martin did not dress for tonight’s game…
“What I told the team is that I don’t expect guys to be happy they aren’t playing, I expect them to understand why they don’t play the minutes they want to play. I expect them to understand their role. All that being said, they need to come back out the next day and work hard and understand this is a team– a team– and that they play as a team and not as individuals. I’m not going to get into a situation where I start talking about playing time and things of that nature, because I’m too sensitive to the kids in general. That is what I told the group and Terry needs to understand that and he needs to understand that, identify his role with the team, accept it and move forward.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
Opening Statement…
“It was a hard fought game. You have to give McNeese credit. They came out strong tonight. They shot the ball very well from the three point line and that’s how you put points on the board. They had a chance tonight especially the way we played. We put out the win and that’s all that matters.”
On the Texas A&M loss…
“We had a sluggish start tonight. It was a very physical and emotional lost for us. We had a bit of a hangover effect but we showed courage coming back at halftime and winning the game.”
On what coach said at halftime…
“He told us we needed to play with a bit more intensity. That we were playing sluggish. Coach told us to come out and play like LSU Tigers have been playing the last nine games. That’s what we did. We seemed lackadaisical between the first five to 10 minutes in the second half but we pulled off the win.”
Opening Statement…
“We are coming off an emotional game. We need to give all the credit to McNeese. They came out here and really capitalized on our faults. We came out sluggish and they took advantage. It was just about who was the better team in the end.”
On his performance tonight…
“I just want to thank my teammates for having faith in me. I wasn’t helping them out on offense and I got into foul trouble. I could not contribute to my team like. We all came together down the stretch and pulled off the win.”
Opening Statement…
“It was a hard fought game. We came off a game with a lot of emotions. Competing against big physical players like McNeese when we are all banged-up was hard. We showed a lot of courage tonight and we got the win.”
On the game…
“I think everyone went to the goal. We didn’t finish in the first half though. In the second half shots started going in. Our outside shooters really came through and played very well.”
MCNEESE STATE HEAD COACH DAVE SIMMONS
On what went wrong in the game …
“We felt pretty good coming out after halftime. We had an opportunity to keep it in touch, but we missed some free throws and missed some one-and-ones and it was our better free throw shooters who shot those. The story was at the beginning of the second half we just didn’t come out with the same energy LSU did and they made a run and then we fought back in the game, but when you look up at the end of the day and see we were 12 of 22 from the free throw line and lost the game by three points; that’s an eye sore right there. We fought hard and didn’t give up. We struggled at one point in the game and we just have to figure out what the lapse was. They (LSU) are a tremendous basketball team. We have to produce more points in the paint in order to beat a team like LSU. The bottom line is we came out with another loss. We don’t believe in moral victories here, but I felt like we had the right stuff to come in here and win.”
On shutting LSU down inside …
“In the first half I think we caught them (LSU) flat and we were pushing and thought they got tired once we continued to push the basketball, but I think at one point in time I thought we had the advantage inside and I don’t think we capitalized on that in our stretch. The effort was great, though, and this is a tough place to play. We enjoy coming over here and playing and if we can continue to get that type of effort from these guys then we’ll continue to come over here and play. Tonight could have been our night, but in the end it just wasn’t.”
First Half Recap
McNeese led the game pretty much from the outset, getting a dunk to open the game from big Kleon Penn and the Cowboys pretty much held the advantage through the first 10 minutes, building two six point leads at 11-5 and 14-6 before LSU cut it to 14-12 in what was the first of a four-game homestand for the Tigers. McNeese shot the ball well in the early going hitting almost 55 percent and took the early life out of the crowd.
Again foul trouble played an early part in the game as Tasmin Mitchell got two fouls in the first 10:15 forcing him to the bench with LSU down, 16-12.
Bo Spencer stole a pass and drove the length of the court and was fouled to complete the three-point play to make it 17-15 McNeese at the nine minute mark. McNeese hit a three to up the margin to 20-15 inside the seven minute mark and LSU was unable to convert on a Spencer three sending the ball back to McNeese.
LSU turned the ball over seven times in the first 15 minutes and still trailed 22-17 and Pichon drove the lane and got it to go down to make it 24-17 McNeese. Quinton Thornton answered back with a baby hook to make it 24-19 at the 4:30 mark. Marcus Thornton stole the bowl and McNeese was called for an intentional foul as the game went to the final media timeout of the first half at the 3:35 mark.
Thornton missed both free throws but LSU got the ball back at center court and Storm Warren scored to cut it to three. Marcus Thornton came down with the rebound on the other end but the possession resulted in another turnover.
Martin banged in a three to make it 27-21 at the 1:44 mark as LSU continued to battle against the zone. LSU entered the final minute down seven, 28-21 and with the ball and turned it over. With a 71-game Louisiana streak on the line and an overall 11-game home winning streak dating back to last year the Tigers were down 28-21 at intermission.