BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball season came to an end Saturday night when the top-seeded North Carolina Tar Heels downed the LSU Tigers, the eighth seed in the South region, 84-70 at the Greensboro Coliseum.
Several words were repeated over and over by writers and the television talking heads Saturday night ? most were using the adjectives “very good” in front of LSU and they were talking about the coaching of Trent Johnson and the play of Marcus Thornton. They were also speculating on how much Ty Lawson of North Carolina returning to the lineup changed the complexion of the game.
No matter how you slice it despite the loss, the LSU Tigers had one of the best seasons in LSU history. In a year when LSU celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first intercollegiate sanctioned college basketball game for the Tigers, LSU had one of the best seasons in the history of the program. LSU won 27 games and only two teams (1981-31; 1999-00-28) won more games. The win total equaled the win total of the Final Four team of 2006.
LSU moved into solo second place with its 10th SEC championship, its third in the 2000s. Coach Trent Johnson became the fourth coach to win a conference title and the fourth to win an NCAA Tournament game at the school, joining Harry Rabenhorst, Dale Brown and John Brady. Johnson also became one of a small group of coaches to win tournament games at three different schools (Nevada, Stanford, LSU).
Johnson is a finalist for three national coach of the year awards including the Naismith Award that will be announced in the days and weeks ahead.
LSU as a team made 213 three-point field goals and finishes just two shy of the school record for a season of 215 in 2003 and the team’s 212 blocks is the third most for an LSU squad.
Marcus Thornton, the SEC Player of the Year, dazzled the fans in Greensboro and continued to finally get a forum on the national stage in the latter stages of the 2009 season. Thornton scored 30 in the win over Butler and 25 in the North Carolina game and in just two years, he finished with 1,347 points, good enough for 21st on the career scoring chart.
Hypothetically, if Thornton had one more year and could have scored at the same rate, he potentially in three years could have been second only to Pete Maravich in scoring at LSU. As it is, he was one of only 10 players to score 1,000 points in their first two years at LSU. Thornton’s performance could certainly help his chances to be on the Wooden Award All-American team in which voting concludes this coming week.
Thornton’s 21.1 final average this season is the best at LSU since Ronnie Henderson averaged 21.8 points in 1996. Thornton’s 739 points this season is the eighth-most in a single season at LSU on a chart in which eight of the 10 spots are held by All-Century team members Pete Maravich (3), Chris Jackson (2), Shaquille O’Neal (2) and Bob Pettit (1). Thornton’s career average of 20.4 ranks sixth best at LSU.
Speaking of chart watching, Tasmin Mitchell‘s senior season will be a countdown to cracking the top 10 in career scoring as he finished his junior year with 1,468 points, a 13.8 average over 106 games. He moved past Torris Bright to take the 16th spot on the all-time list. He is just 120 points away from passing Glen Davis for the 10th spot on the prestigious list of players. In fact, if Mitchell follows up with a similar season scoring total, he will be up in the rarified air of possibly third on that scoring list and a little higher average would give him the chance to possibly get to that second spot held by Rudy Macklin.
Mitchell also is one of those 18 individuals who have 1,000 points and 500 rebounds at LSU and his 658 boards put him 21st on the year.
Garrett Temple also left his name on the same list his father Collis Temple, Jr. did, cracking the 500 rebound list in his final game. He becomes the 36th player in LSU history to get 500 rebounds. Temple also finished fourth all-time in assists, seventh all-time in steals and fourth all-time in career blocks at LSU.
More impressively, he finished his career having played more minutes than any other player in LSU history with 4,432 minutes, a 33.1 average. After playing 1,207 minutes his freshman year of 2006, he tallied 1,099 in 2007, 1,066 in 2008 and this year 1,060 minutes.
Temple and Mitchell also joined a very special group of nine players that started on two SEC Championship teams at LSU. Temple and Mitchell both were starters as freshmen on the 2006 SEC Championship team that went to the NCAA Final Four. In his four years, Temple was in on 84 wins. Mitchell will enter his senior season, having played in 83 wins after redshirting except for the first three games of the 2007-08 season.
Temple teamed with Bo Spencer to continue a run of several years in which the primary point and distributing guards have more assists than turnovers. Temple had 134 assists and 67 turnovers, while Spencer had 87 assists and 63 turnovers. Temple’s assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.0 is one of the best in the Southeastern Conference.
Three other senior finished their career all with bright moments and contributions to the championship season ? Terry Martin, Chris Johnson and Terry Martin. Johnson finished his career with 176 career blocks, second only to Shaquille O’Neal in LSU history.
Fans also responded in higher numbers with five of the top 10 in paid attendance (since the building was reconfigured prior to 2005-06) including 13,939 on hand for the game with Xavier on Jan. 24, 2009. The best actual was also that Xavier game of 12,206 based on electronic ticket scanning and four of the top seven were from this season. For the season, the paid average was at 10,373, an increase of 1,808 from the 2007-08 season.