BATON ROUGE — Bo Spencer tallied 13 second half points, while Dennis Harris chipped in a career-best 12 points, but the LSU men’s basketball lost a 66-49 decision to Alabama in the SEC opener for both schools Saturday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Harris connected on all five of his shots from the field to reach double figures for the second time in his career. He also secured three rebounds in 12 minutes of action off the bench. Tasmin Mitchell also poured in 11 points and grabbed nine rebounds to extend his double figures scoring streak to 11 games.
LSU (9-6, 0-1 SEC) dropped its league opener to the Crimson Tide (11-4, 1-0 SEC) for the second straight season and have suffered back-to-back home losses for the first time in the Trent Johnson era.
Alabama held a 33-18 halftime edge behind an 18-8 spurt over the final 10 minutes of the first half. The Crimson Tide scored 22 points in the paint as JaMychal Green notched 12 of his game-high 14 points during the opening stanza.
Alabama pushed its lead to 48-24 after six consecutive Chris Hines points with 15:28 remaining in the second half. The Tigers used an 11-4 run aided by back-to-back Spencer triples along with five straight Harris points to pull back to 64-48 at the 2:13 mark.
Alabama used a balanced attack as Senario Hillman and Mikhail Torrance tacked on 13 and 12 points, respectively to join Green in double figures for the Crimson Tide.
LSU opens a two-game road swing Wednesday at South Carolina. Tip-off is slated for 7 p.m. CT, and the game will be televised by the SEC Network. Fans also can listen to the game on the LSU Sports Radio Network (New Country 100.7 FM The Tiger in Baton Rouge) and online at LSUsports.net in the Geaux Zone.
LSU HEAD COACH TRENT JOHNSON QUOTES
Opening statement …
“Obviously, it’s not the way you want to start in the league, but it is really simple for me. They are flat better than we are. It was interesting. In the first half, for about the first four or five possessions against Alabama’s press, we had guys coming back to the ball with no one around them. It wasn’t their presses as much as it was our inability to make a consistent solid play. You look at nine assists and 15 turnovers; we’ve had a worse number of turnovers against teams that are inferior. They pounded us was the paint. I thought it was extremely easy (JaMychal) Green, (Justin) Knox and (Tony) Mitchell. It backed us off early. They had 38 points in the paint and 19 on turnovers, but that can be deceiving. Once we had a turnover, they got it at half court and pounded it. They set a tone. Look at how they handled the ball on the glass, and they did a good job of taking Tasmin (Mitchell) and Bo (Spencer) out, which enabled Aaron (Dotson), Zach (Kinsley) and Chris (Bass) to get open shots, but they just didn’t go down. You have to give Alabama credit. We knew coming in that it was going to be tough. We just have to find a way to fight through. Sometimes I feel that we are playing three or four on five.
“The positive thing is that I think Dennis (Harris) played well. I thought he jumped up and made some play and shots. For me, I addressed the group and told them the bottom line is that the things we’ve talked about and worked on, we have to continue to talk about and work on. Things that help our ability to be fundamentally sound, such as our ability to set screens and stay aggressive when things aren’t going well, and as a group our ability to stay together because when there is a little adversity, sometimes people on the outside make it seem worse than it is. The deficiencies we’ve known we had as a basketball team all year are just becoming magnified and exposed. We just have to get back in the gym and do what we can to get better.”
On getting ready for South Carolina …
“The main thing for us is that we have to make a guy like Devin Downing and the entire South Carolina team likes to press and trap at a higher rate and level than Alabama does. For us, Keeping Downing in front of you is a handful, but it isn’t going to be one or two guys as opposed to total team defense. The thing that surprised me today is when Alabama didn’t get us skewed and get in the lane, guys didn’t rotate over and help each other. It is our inability to execute. There is no one in the league that has the speed and quickness (Downing) has. For us on the road, it is going to be a similar game. We are going to have to handle their pressure, manage the clock and do all the little things to give us a chance.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
On what Alabama did well against them …
“I think it was mainly us. There wasn’t anything too major that (Alabama) did. They defended very well on the half-court and the press was broken, we just couldn’t convert on the other end. Hats off to Alabama; they played a great game. I think we beat ourselves.”
On how close the team is to being ready to compete in the SEC …
“I don’t think we’re too far away, but we’re not there yet. We still have a ways to go. We’re still trying to get better. This was a negative game. Hopefully we can find some positives in this game and move forward and try to beat South Carolina on the road.”
On losing the point battle in the paint …
“They really pounded the ball well inside and did a nice job rebounding offensively. We didn’t really do a good job of playing defense in the paint. It wasn’t a matter of length that bothered us. Like I said, we beat ourselves.”
On what Alabama did well against them …
“(Alabama) was ready to play. We weren’t ready to play; we weren’t as mentally ready as the other team. The press didn’t really give us problems; it was mainly ourselves. We weren’t converting, and we had a few offensive breakdowns. We had some chances to convert offensively, but we just couldn’t.”
On first half turnovers …
“It wasn’t their press that bothered us at all. We could’ve cracked the press, but we were just being lazy with the ball. It wasn’t their pressure that bothered us. We were just being too casual with the ball.”
On the last ten minutes of the game …
“It’s always good to end a game with something positive. In the last 10 minutes we started penetrating better. We just have to be able to do that from start to finish. We have to be able to come out aggressive from the get-go.”
ALABAMA POSTGAME QUOTES
Head Coach Anthony Grant
Opening statement…
“I thought it was a very good win today for our team. I feel like the things we’ve talked about heading into conference play, defending and rebounding the ball, I thought those two things really won the game for us today. The other thing was getting our guys to try to understand, style-of-play-wise, playing to our identity and the kind of effect that could have. I thought from the beginning of the game, our guys did a great job of setting the tone in terms of the way the game would be played. We’re very fortunate, obviously, to be able to get our first SEC win of the year on the road today.”
On getting his first career SEC win…
“It’s never going to be about me. I think for us, the thing we talked about all year is trying to get better as a team, trying to make sure that we’re playing to our identity, and understanding what it takes to win. For us, I’m very proud of the way we defended tonight. I’m very proud of the focus our guys came in and played with. Any time you go on the road and you’ve got to go to another team’s building, especially in this league, that’s a difficult thing to do. I thought our guys handled it well.”
On the team’s progress this season…
“Guys are beginning to understand what we’re trying to do. They’re beginning to get more comfortable within the offense and understanding what our team needs to be successful. I think we’re learning. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well, so the game was won on the defensive end.”
Forward JaMychal Green
On maintaining the fast start throughout the game…
“Coach always tells us to put our foot on our opponents throats when we’ve got them down, so that’s what we tried to do tonight. We didn’t want them to get any momentum or cut the lead down, so we just kept attacking.”
Guard Senario Hillman
On attacking the LSU offense…
“We just tried to wear them down. We know they just had two ballhandlers, and we just kept pressuring them to try to get turnovers.”