BATON ROUGE — LSU’s Tasmin Mitchell scored a career-high 30 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to lead the Tigers to an 85-68 win over South Carolina in their first Southeastern Conference home game of the season.
LSU (13-3, 1-1 SEC) matched their 2007-08 victory total after only 16 games by shooting 53.5 percent from the field and adding 27-of-35 (77.4 percent) free throws.
Mitchell made 10-of-15 shots from the field and 10-of-13 free throws on his way to a career night. LSU also got 10 points each and three assists and a combined eight steals from guards Bo Spencer and Garrett Temple.
South Carolina (12-3, 1-1 SEC) was held 13 points below their season scoring average. The Gamecocks were led by guards Zam Fredrick and Devan Downey who each scored 18 points.
LSU scored the most points in an SEC contest since scoring 92 against Vanderbilt in the SEC tournament in 2006 and the win was the 16th-consecutive by the Tigers at the Maravich Center, tying for the fourth longest winning streak in building history. LSU won its final three home games last season.
The game drew a paid attendance of 11,393 which included more than 2,700 students who were back for the first time in the spring semester to see the Tigers play.
The Tigers just muscled their way to the lead in the first half after South Carolina had the lead for the first two minutes of the game and slowly began to open the spread, getting it to 10, 24-14, for the first time with 8:56 to go in the half. LSU would lead 40-22 at the intermission.
The Tigers opened up a 20-point advantage, 53-33, with 14:07 to play and appeared in complete control of the game, but South Carolina began to hit a few three-pointers and gradually whittled the LSU lead in half, 62-52, with 6:27 to play.
But this time LSU got its offensive and defensive play going again and eventually moved the lead back to 20 in the final three minutes.
“I thought our first half we were pretty good,” said LSU Coach Trent Johnson. Obviously there was a lot of frustration among our team the last two games out. Being home as something to do with it, but we had some good contributions from some guys coming off the bench.”
That bench play included Quentin Thornton who played 22 minutes and had seven points and six boards, Terry Martin in his longest stint since his return from the four-game suspension, scoring 7 points in 21 minutes and Chris Bass who ran the team without a turnover for 12 minutes.
The Tigers will face Ole Miss in Oxford at 3 p.m. in a game to be regionally televised by Raycom Sports.
LSU HEAD COACH TRENT JOHNSON QUOTES
Opening statement …
“I thought our first half we were pretty good. Obviously there was a lot of frustration among our team the last two games out. Being home has something to do with it, but we had some good contributions from some guys coming off the bench. Quintin Thornton was typical Quintin Thornton and gave us a defensive lift and actually scored some points at the rim. Terry (Martin) has been practicing well and he played well. He came off the bench and did a good job. He made some nice passes. Bo (Spencer) got winded the first half and Chris Bass came in to help us. It’s good to get a win and probably more important to play well.”
On LSU’s performance against South Carolina …
“Again, I said this maybe a month ago. I have a good feel for our group and when we practice well and play hard we are capable of competing with anybody. When we have slippage, even from just one or two guys, we have a tendency to have trouble. Let’s make no mistake about it; Utah was flat out better than we were. They were better than we were that night. Texas A&M was better than we were, road or home doesn’t matter. Alabama was a situation on the road, but we didn’t compete at a high level at crucial times and when we don’t do that we are in trouble.
“When we get careless with the ball, we are going to cause problems for ourselves. Those are the things I have a good feeling on. This group is going to compete the best they can, it’s just that our margin of error is very slim.”
On Tasmin Mitchell‘s performance …
“Tasmin Mitchell is not a kid, he is a man. He kept looking over at us during the first half to see if we wanted him at the five or the four, and sometimes I have to do a better job of putting him in a situation where he can be aggressive. He is so coachable and he wants to win so badly. He has been really consistent and I hope people appreciate what he has been doing. He is a 6-6 guy that is not explosive, but he is a heck of a basketball player. He gets more done playing beneath the rim. He has more than exceeded my expectations. I knew he was going to be passionate, I knew he was going to score, but the variety of ways he has been able to score in 16 games has been impressive.”
On how he feels LSU competed …
“I thought Bo (Spencer) was really good. He has competed really well the last two games and when Chris (Bass) came in the game, I thought he did a good job. South Carolina has four or five guys that are very skilled. It is very hard to keep them out of the lane. I thought Zam Fredrick probably did as good of a job as anyone at getting a shot off against Garrett (Temple), whose special defense is well known. “
SOUTH CAROLINA HEAD COACH DARRIN HORN
On the play of PG Devan Downey…
“It’s hard to win a game when your best player and all-conference point guard has eight turnovers. It’s going to be tough to get a win on the road especially when a team doesn’t pressure you that much and you still can’t maintain ball security throughout the game. I think he tried to do a little bit too much tonight, he needs to learn to let the offense come to him.”
On LSU’s defense forcing turnovers…
“I think what teams are starting to do (to defend Downey), and we talked about this before the game, is they’re starting to run people at him because he’s so good at getting to the rim. He just needs to recognize that and see the kickout passes.”
On how South Carolina’s bench played and the performance of F Dominique Archie…
“Well those would be two of the bright spots in the game, if you could find any. We got some good points from Dominique and I thought (F Evaldas Baniulis) came in and gave us some solid minutes off the bench. We talked about it before, the challenge for this team when we play on the road is that we’re not deep, athletic or talented enough without everybody at their best and tonight was one of those nights where we weren’t at our best.”
On the performance of LSU F Tasmin Mitchell (30 points, 14 rebounds)…
“We’re really disappointed in that part of it, the rebounding part of the game. Mitchell just really had his way inside and put on an exhibition of what a high talent level he has.”
On going 8-22 from the free-throw line…
“You’re going to work on that some, of course. But I think it was mostly mental. It seemed like every guy that got to the line after Dominique (Archie) missed his two shots was thinking about the guy in front of him missing. Those are the things that, as much as basketball, we have to grown in as a team: playing the next play and staying focused on the little things. The sad part is that if we were a little better (from the line) in the first have, this may have been a totally different game. We missed 14, but how many was that really with the mental aspect being so weak tonight?”
SOUTH CAROLINA PLAYER QUOTES
G Devan Downey
On his thoughts of the game …
“I felt like we could have definitely played better. We did not come out and play like we should have. Playing on the road in the SEC is very difficult. In this game, we kind of dug ourselves a hole and we could not find a way to get out of it. That is something we just cannot do in a game like this.”
On what the Gamecocks face in the road ahead …
“After this game, we know what we need to focus on in order to play better. Next week we play Tennessee. We need to get to practice and correct everything that we did wrong. We will take everything from this game, evaluate it and make our team better.”