NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Wayne Chism had 17 points and 10 rebounds and Tennessee (No. 13 ESPN/USA Today, No. 15 AP) overcame its worst first half of the season to beat LSU 59-49 in the first round of the Southeastern Conference tournament on Thursday.
With the teams tied at 30, Cameron Tatum stretched across the lane to hit a layup with 14:28 left and launch a 16-4 run for Tennessee (24-7). J.P. Prince dunked off an alley-oop pass from Brian Williams to extend the Vols’ lead to 46-34, their largest margin of the game.
LSU (11-20) held Tennessee to 25.9 percent from the floor in the first half, the Vols worst shooting performance of any half this season. Tennessee also committed 17 turnovers.
Still, the Tigers couldn’t take advantage of the Vols’ struggles after scoring 11 off the giveaways and finishing with 36.4 percent shooting.
Tennessee, the only ranked team to play on the first day after finishing third in the East Division, advances to play Mississippi, the West’s No. 2 seed.
Tasmin Mitchell hit consecutive 3s to cut Tennessee’s margin to 54-49 with 1:02 left, but Aaron Dotson missed a layup and a foul on Storm Warren sent Bobby Maze to the free-throw line. Maze sank both of his shots to help Tennessee preserve the lead.
Maze finished with 14 points, and Prince added 11.
Mitchell entered the game needing 21 points to reach 2,000 but finished with 10 to end his career with 1,989. Storm Warren led LSU with 18 points.
The Vols, who have won 13 of the last 18 between the two teams, also struggled in their regular-season meeting with the Tigers, hanging on to win 59-54. LSU fought back after trailing by 14 points in that game, but Mitchell missed a potential game-tying 3 with 6 seconds left.
The two teams last met in the tournament in 2007 — with LSU also ranked last in the West and Tennessee third in the East in that game — but the Tigers won 76-67 in overtime.
LSU QUOTES
THE MODERATOR: We’re ready to begin with LSU. We’ll ask Coach Johnson for some opening comments, his thoughts on the game, and then we’ll take your questions just for the two student-athletes and then excuse them back to the locker room and then finish up with coach. So coach, if you’d begin.
COACH JOHNSON: I thought for the most part we were in a position where we could have came out with a win.
We had some shots for us that didn’t go down. There were a couple of key possessions where they hurt us on the glass, but I can’t fault our effort. I can’t fault our execution.
I thought for the most part, like I said, I thought we had an opportunity, if we make a basket here or there, we’re in a position that we can go down the stretch and probably pull this thing out.
I don’t want to take anything away from Tennessee. They’re long and athletic, good basketball team. Very similar type game to the one where we played them in Baton Rouge.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll take your questions for either of the two student-athletes.
Q. Tasmin, your thoughts right now on your career coming to an end and maybe the a thought about the way you were defended today.
TASMIN MITCHELL: Like Coach said, we had many opportunities to win the game. How they defended me, they defended me like the last game. I’ve been defended like that a lot of times.
But, you know, like Coach say, we just missed some shots. You know, the shots didn’t fall for us. Even though I was guarded that way, we still had an opportunity to win the game.
Q. Tasmin, as you look back on this season, obviously the wins and losses weren’t where you wanted them to be when you came back. But just talk about your growth as a player, and do you regret at all coming back?
TASMIN MITCHELL: No, I don’t regret at all coming back. I wouldn’t change the decision for the world. I’m glad I came back. I think I grew as a man and as a player. Coach Johnson allowed me to do that.
Just because of the win-loss margin wasn’t how we wanted it to be, I don’t regret coming back and playing for Louisiana State University. I wear my purple and gold proud.
Q. Storm, just talk about looking forward with this team. Obviously, you took some lumps this year, but a young team. And just talk about where you see this team going from here.
STORM WARREN: Well, you know, it was a rough season, but we’re just going to have to take it, learn from it, and build off of it for next year.
Q. For both you guys, what was working for you guys defensively? And seemed to frustrate Tennessee a little bit.
TASMIN MITCHELL: You know, it was kind of obvious, the zone. You know, Tennessee is not a great shooting team. I mean, I really don’t think they made like two or three threes the whole game. Like Coach said, they beat us on boards and getting the ball in the paint doing the zone.
But the zone always give Tennessee problems. They’ve never been a real good shooting team beyond the arc. So the zone was working.
I feel like we played it okay, but we just didn’t grasp it at the end of the game when we could have captured the game.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll excuse you. And we’ll continue on with Coach Johnson.
Q. Coach, obviously, the zone was a factor. I think Bruce Pearl said coming in you only played them seven position zone down there at LSU. What was the reason for the switch, and what did you see this time?
COACH JOHNSON: Well, basically for us, I want to say our last five or six games starting back at Vanderbilt, we made a conscious decision to go play zone because that gives us the best opportunity to slow the game down and keep them in front of us.
Obviously, for this team this year in this league, we’re overmatched physically from a quickness standpoint. I think that gave us the best opportunity of being in games and having a chance to win the game.
What they did was a very, very good job of attacking when they needed to. On the other side of the ball, we were in a position where we were getting the ball to one of the better players that’s played in this league on a consistent basis for four or five years.
He had some plays he didn’t make, and from my standpoint, he took a physical beating. But it’s been like that all year long.
Q. Trent, did you guys do anything special defensively? Scotty Hopson, I think he was 0 for 8.
COACH JOHNSON: No. Basically in the zone we always try to identify the best perimeter shooter and try to shade a man and a half before him and keep him out of rhythm.
Without looking at the videotape, he might have two or three open looks that didn’t go down for him. But the bottom line is make sure we get two or three shooters. Our team is probably in the best position to try to take them out of rhythm.
Q. Coach, talk about what Tasmin was discussing about growth this year? Did you see his growth this season from day one until the final game?
COACH JOHNSON: He’s special, okay. He’s special. His best basketball is ahead of him, and he brings it every day. He’s passionate, he’s committed, and he’s complete. When you look at the full body of work for a four-year period, it’s hard to argue the facts, hard to argue the results.
When you start talking about Tasmin Mitchell — and the people in Baton Rouge who cover us, they know exactly what I’m saying. When a guy talks about where he ranks of all the LSU greats in terms of numbers, most thing he’s proud of is minutes played because that shows the coaches trusted him and his teammates trusted him. That’s the guy we’re talking about.
To me it was frustrating this year — and the responsibility is on me because, obviously, when you’re fortunate enough to be around a young man like that, you want to see him go out on a good note, and that didn’t happen.
But also he’s a guy that I don’t think was showed enough respect throughout the year when you start looking at how many times he went to the free-throw line as opposed to a lot of other guys in this league.
What I mean by that is we go through him in and out all over the place. But the thing about him, he never complains, he never whines. He always continues to play the game, so he’s special.
I hope I’m fortunate enough to have another guy like that in the near future.
Q. Trent, it was 30-30, and you had another one of those stretches where you go about four minutes without scoring, and, you know, they stretch it out to eight. Do you know, or do you recall what maybe went wrong in that stretch that time?
COACH JOHNSON: It was 30-30, and we got a stop, and Chris Bass brought it out on transition to try to speed the thing up. That was a bad decision.
Had to use a time-out, the place started going crazy, and it was a momentum swing. You don’t want to get caught up running up and down with a team like Tennessee.
We can run up and down with any team in this league, but we sort of lost momentum, and we couldn’t get it back. We don’t have a margin of error. So when that happened, it took the wind out of our sails.
Trent, I don’t think Brian Williams played against you guys at Baton Rouge. Could you comment on his play on the boards. He’s pretty dominant.
COACH JOHNSON: He’s big. He’s a big body, and he’s active. 14 rebounds says what it says.
I knew going in he was going to be a difference for them because he enables them to play slow. And when they take him out, they can play fast.
But for the most part, when you’re 6’10”, 270 and you’re active — and I think he has something to prove just from the standpoint of what went on earlier in the year with the suspensions.
He’s committed to the team, committed to the school, and he’s got a lot of energy. He’s a difference maker.
They’ve got a chance to go deep, they really do, because they can play fast. They can play slow.
Q. Coach, as far as looking ahead with this program, obviously, this was a rough season. But you got some youth. You’ve got a core. And you’ve got some good recruits coming in. Just talk about the future of LSU basketball.
COACH JOHNSON: Well, the future’s bright. It’s bright.
Like I told them, we’ll, take two weeks off here. We’ll have an awards banquet on March 28th. And March 29th at 6:00 a.m., we’ll start working back to get back to the top.
I’m not one to get caught up in the future because this is the last game for a guy that’s a special player. But our future’s bright. Make no mistake about it. Everything that happened this year was — I don’t want to say it was expected to the degree it was, but the responsibility sits up here.
My history dictates that I’ll get it correct. Believe me.
Q. Coach, not too long ago, your offense was as much as Tasmin and Bo would allow it to be. You were having a hard time getting points from other people. Tonight they were 5 for 22 and you had some other guys stepping up. Is that a sign that maybe you improved over the course of the season?
COACH JOHNSON: Again, this team’s gotten better. The end result hasn’t been what we all would like, but this team has gotten better.
The key for us is to — spring and summer has to be very productive. And that they don’t forget the hard lessons that they learned this year.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much.
TENNESSEE QUOTES
THE MODERATOR: We’ll ask Coach to make opening comments, and then we’ll have questions just for the student-athletes. Coach, would you begin.
COACH PEARL: The SEC Tournament is supposed to be a celebration of our basketball. Basketball takes place all season long.
You know, tonight, the way we played and how effective LSU was, there wasn’t a great celebration.
However, if you’d seen us through the season, you’ve seen us grind some games out like that. You know, we’ve been doing it with defense and rebounding.
We held them down to 36%, and we out rebounded them not by as big a margin as I would have liked. So it wasn’t a thing of beauty, but it is called survive and advance.
I’d certainly single out Brian Williams and his 14 rebounds was really, really solid for us inside there, and obviously Bobby has a point guard, you put the ball in his hands late, and you let him get fouled and make those plays. So we closed it out.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for either of the two student-athletes.
Q. Brian, even when your team was struggling early, you seemed really inspired today from the get-go, is there any particular reason you came out playing that way?
BRIAN WILLIAMS: It’s one and done. So I think I should be — the team should be on the same page and ready to play.
If you lose, we’re going back to Knoxville, and that’s something nobody wants to do.
Q. Bobby, can you just talk about the slow start and really not a lot of assists today. What was the reason for that?
BOBBY MAZE: Well, I think we got some great looks. LSU played zone. Just wasn’t able to knock down shots.
I think a couple guys — I think we struggled as a team from three. I think we did a good job of playing defense, and that’s why we won the game.
So I look at Brian having all those rebounds, 14 rebounds. You know, when we get that type of production out of him, I think it gives us a great chance to win the game.
Q. Bobby, also for you, can you just talk about the start of the second half. You guys shoot 50% after shooting 26% in the first, and you kind of got things rolling with that first lead of the game and the three-point. What was the difference in the mindset after halftime?
BOBBY MAZE: The difference was the type of shots we took. We drove the ball inside and then kicked it out. Got some plays inside to Wayne and attacked the basket. And was able to get to the free-throw line. That was the difference between the first half and second half.
In the first half, we just settled. As a shooter, you see how open you was, you want to take this shot. Shot clock was at 23, 24. We should have ran it down a little bit more and gotten an even better look. I think we just took the first open shot instead of waiting.
Q. Brian, Trent Johnson said he felt like you were playing with something to prove to your teammates at school because of what happened earlier in the year. Do you feel that way?
BRIAN WILLIAMS: I mean, not many people is granted a second opportunity, and that’s what you got to do is take advantage of that.
And Coach and the University gave me something that I’m blessed with, and I’m trying to take advantage of that so far.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll excuse Bobby and Brian. We’ll continue on with Coach Pearl.
Q. Coach, if you could just talk about the difference in Wayne Chism today and what we’d seen the couple few games leading up to this.
COACH PEARL: Wayne played well against LSU at LSU. And I thought he did a really good job inside and out offensively.
LSU played zone on us the whole game, and it really slowed the tempo of the game down. And like Bobby said, we got some pretty good shots, but, you know, there’s a reason — we are the last in the league in three-point percentage.
And I think LSU’s been playing more zone coming down the stretch. Ole Miss plays a lot of zone. And I would anticipate that we’ll see zone against them as well. Maybe not as much.
You know, I think that this was — you know, it — we weren’t quite as excited about playing early, and I think one of the things that I did differently in the second half that, if I had to do it over again, I would have done differently in the first half, was we should have come out more aggressively man-to-man defense. We should have ball pressured more. We should have extended more. We should have tried to turn them over more.
I should have anticipated that naturally our guys would not be as excited about playing LSU as they would be perhaps about playing a higher seeded team. That’s not a knock on LSU. That’s just — and I didn’t — I could have turned it up a bit early, and we didn’t.
That said, we beat LSU at LSU by five points. Bobby Maze was on the foul line with a minute or so to go, and we had a one-point lead.
And if you look historically at our games against LSU over the last several years, they’ve all been really close. I might even throw this one out there and say that the margin of victory might be as tight against them as anybody in the SEC.
We lost to them in overtime in Atlanta a couple years ago. Be interesting to look at.
Q. Bruce, other than a bad shooting game, was there anything wrong with Scotty Hopson? He almost seemed to be pouting in that first half?
COACH PEARL: I think he — he was — he obviously was struggling with his shot.
And this is as close to home as he gets. I mean, Hoptown is right down the road, and I think Scotty really wanted to play well. Here’s the deal. He’s been playing great the last six ball games. He’s really played well.
So I was surprised that he struggled tonight because he’s been playing really well. And he’s good against zone, he’s really good in space and so I was kind of surprised by that a little bit.
But I’ll find out. He’s not been in the training room or anything like that, but I think it was he just wanted to do — wanted to do well, and against zone, I can’t play call to get him the ball quite like you can against man to man. So therefore he struggled.
Look, if he’d made a couple of shots — he had four assists, and I think many of those assists came in the second half. So I thought he did a pretty good job there.
Q. Bruce, how much of an emphasis did you put on stopping Tasmin, or containing him? How important is he to what they do?
COACH PEARL: When Tasmin Mitchell and Bo Spencer combined account for about 45% of their offense, it makes sense to have those two guys be the focal point of your scouting report. Bo Spencer is 1 for 10. Tasmin is 4 for 12.
And so I thought as a team we did a really good job defensively on those two guys because those two guys can absolutely run away and hide and win games.
Bo Spencer’s had 11 20-point games this year, and obviously Tasmin is a double digit guy.
And so the fact that we were able to contain those two and make the other team — make the other guys beat us. Warren got a few too many open looks, got a few too many things tied into the post, but other than that, that was what the game plan was.
Q. Coach, value in possessions is something that you’ve talked about a lot this year. Can you address the 17 turnovers.
COACH PEARL: I think what happened is against the zone we held the ball, and we tried to make the pass instead of making easy pass and have the next guy make the pass.
J.P. would be a good example of that. He had no assists and five turnovers because he was always trying to get the ball and make the pass.
Now, he had a couple of layups that were handed to different guys. And, look, just because you get it to the rim doesn’t mean it’s an easy finish.
You know, LSU’s got a pretty big front line, and they put some big bodies out there with Tasmin and Green and Storm Warren and then Harris’ length. We got the ball off the rim a few times and couldn’t finish, didn’t finish, bobbled the ball. It’s because of the threat of the bigs coming over.
So I wasn’t thinking like we — we rushed a little bit, but I just don’t think that we made easy passes. We’re always trying to make the tough pass to get the assist.
Q. Coach, if you could just talk in detail a little bit more about LSU. I know you said you watched them on film one night, hadn’t really prepared for them but you did see some film. What’s the difference between — I’m sorry. Ole Miss now and when you played them earlier this season.
COACH PEARL: Ole Miss probably comes into the tournament playing as well as anybody. They won, I believe after they lost to Vanderbilt and Florida, they’ve won every game coming down the stretch.
And they’ve got great guards. And Warren and Terrico are great players. We beat them at home in overtime, and it was all we could do. I would say that our win against Ole Miss at home is absolutely right there with any of our wins, including Kentucky, Kansas, Ole Miss. Those would be our three biggest wins of the year.
That’s how — they come in ranked 21st in the country, and they got good depth. And they’re playing for their tournament lives. You know, they’re supposedly one of the — a team that’s probably one win — one quality win away from getting in.
And given our ranking and our RPI, not the way we played tonight, but given our ranking and our RPI, we would be a quality win.
So we know that they’re going to come out — and then, obviously, I prepared my basketball team for LSU. You have to understand, when there’s a chance you’re going to play Tasmin Mitchell in his last game — and that guy’s a competitor. And a team as well-coached as Trent Johnson, you’d better prepare your team to play LSU. I promise you we did.
It may not have looked like it, but we did. And I did look at Ole Miss on Sunday and Monday myself, Sunday and Monday morning, just because I had to, because I’ve got to be ready for them now.
We play them now in 20-something hours.
Q. Bruce, in a best case scenario, you could play four games in four days. Did that factor in at all in your decision maybe not to play as aggressively defensively?
COACH PEARL: Yeah, it did. And I don’t know that it should have. If we’d have lost the game, I would have put that one on myself.
I’m already putting on myself the fact that we didn’t come out as aggressively as we should. And, yes, there was a thought in my mind that I didn’t want to have to extend too terribly much.
And part of it too is because LSU doesn’t mind when you extend. They’re good against pressure. And also, you must game plan to stop Spencer and Tasmin. So we offered lots of help on those guys, and we made their looks tough.
Tasmin was 4 for 12, and 2 of those came late. You know, so I’m not saying the way we guarded wasn’t the way to guard LSU. They scored 49 points and shot 36%. But I could have picked up the pace a little bit and maybe not allowed them to — you know, stay with us as long.
And my thought was — not so much four games in four days, John. Ole Miss in 20 hours.
Q. Bruce, I just — I know you just heard Brian on the podium now. How do you think he’s taken advantage of the second opportunity and second chance?
COACH PEARL: Brian is a great kid from a wonderful family. And suffered a terrific penalty and certainly is happy to be back, is taking advantage of the opportunity, and wants very much to do — continue to do positive things.
Brian’s about a 3.0 student. Brian will graduate in four years from Tennessee. Brian’s done a lot of really — and Brian’s playing well right now, and he had a very, very public, visible mistake, and it’s not — it’s a very small piece of who he is. However, he understands that there’s no margin for error for him, and we’ll do everything we can to try to protect him, support him, and I’m very — I’m obviously very, very happy for him.
And he was a big difference in our team.
Q. Can this team continue to win and advance throughout the Tournament playing the way that you did today?
COACH PEARL: No. If we play like that tomorrow, we won’t advance. We’ll get beat. We have to play better to beat Ole Miss.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.