BATON ROUGE – Andre Stringer poured in 20 points, one shy of career-high, but the LSU men’s basketball team couldn’t hold a 12-point lead over the final 15 minutes as South Alabama came back to defeat the Tigers by a 79-75 margin Wednesday in overtime at the Maravich Center.
LSU (3-3) had its two-game winning streak come to a close and won’t play at home until its meets Boise State on December 10.
The Tigers had three other players join Stringer in double figures. Ralston Turner connected for eight of his 11 points after the first half, while Anthony Hickey tallied 12 points and dished out a career-high six assists. A 5-for-6 shooting effort fueled Justin Hamilton to 11 points to go along with four rebounds.
South Alabama (2-2) used a 20-point performance from Augustine Rubit. He connected for 8-for-16 from the floor and 4-of-6 at the line. Xavier Roberson added 19 points for the Jaguars.
LSU led for a majority of the game and carried a 61-50 advantage at the 8:04 mark of the second half after a Hamilton three-point play.
The Jaguars chipped away and tied the score at 63-63 on a Javier Carter jumper with 3:31 left. He scored 10 of his 11 points following the break.
LSU used a pair of free throws from Stringer and Turner to go back ahead 69-66 with 1:11 remaining. However, South Alabama’s Freddie Goldstein spilt a pair of free throws with 19 seconds to go, and the Jaguars retained possession after the miss.
Goldstein ran down the remaining time and buried an off-balanced 17-foot jumper to deadlock the tally at 69-69 and force overtime. South Alabama scored 10 of the 16 points during the extra stanza capped a pair of Goldstein free throws with two seconds to go to cap the 79-75 victory.
LSU for the second straight year started out the game good against South Alabama from the arc, hitting 8-of-11, but missed its last six shots from three-point range. The Tigers were 11-of-16 from the free throw line (68.8%) after averaging almost 80 percent in the first five games. But where the Tigers ran into trouble was on the boards, where South Alabama out rebounded LSU, 42-31.
LSU returns to action Tuesday at Houston. Tip-off is slated for 7 p.m. and the game will be carried live on 100.7 FM (The Tiger) in the Baton Rouge area. Jim Hawthorne, Kevin Ford and Ricky Blanton will call the action on the LSU Sports Radio Network. Tuesday’s tilt also is televised on CBS College Sports Network.
HEAD COACH TRENT JOHNSON
Opening statement…
“Well that certainly wasn’t the team that was in Charleston. I wish I had an explanation for you, but I don’t want to take anything away from South Alabama. We had a lack of energy. To get out rebounded like we did and then with South Alabama coming up with all the 50/50 balls, you can’t expect to win. Like I told the team, you just can’t show up and expect to win a game, whether you are at home or on the road. The one thing that sort of concerns me is that although we had 17 assists and 11 turnovers, and when we got up 10, I thought we had some guys try to go off on their own a little bit. Defensively, we were very undisciplined. Again, after competing and defending like we did in Charleston and in our last two games, that really surprises me and tells me there are some guys that thought they could just show up at home and win easily. Good thing about it, I don’t want to say it is early, but it is early. We will come out on Friday at 7 a.m. and get after it and then Saturday and Sunday too.”
On guys “going their own way” during the game…
“We were up 10 and we had some opportunities, but the guys got cute with the ball. The big thing for me was you get in to overtime, or not even in overtime, there was a six minute mark during the game, and I kept addressing it in timeouts that your inability to stay disciplined, pass and catch with two hands and do all the little things — now you are in a situation where you are giving them life and what they need to stay in the game. Then guys started disappearing, and when I say disappearing I mean not being aggressive and not looking to make good solid plays. You know, 42-31 on the glass that is just saying that the other team is outworking you and that is disappointing and surprising considering the improvements we have made in the last three games.”
On the defense…
“I was disappointed with the defense on all aspects. As much as we work on keeping the ball in front of you, our rotations and things of that nature, as well as all of the improvements that we made against the more talented teams in Charleston, for that to happen tonight, it speaks volumes of our guys’ lack of concentration and effort.”
LSU Guard Andre Stringer
On the game…
“I don’t think it’s what they did; I think we just were in a hurry to get a shot up to try to bring the lead back up for us. We took a couple of tough shots here and there, but we were just trying to get the lead back.”
LSU Guard Anthony Hickey
On South Alabama’s performance in overtime…
“They played great offense. Defensively, they slowed us down a little bit. We were rushing a little bit and we need to learn how to play under control as a team and not gamble on shots. We had a couple of turnovers and we just have to be more solid on the offensive end and play D on the defensive end.”
LSU Guard Ralston Turner
On the team being outrebounded…
“They outworked us and we need to take ownership of that. We came out flat. We didn’t make plays down the stretch. Give them all the credit. They outworked us.”
On Coach Johnson’s message to the team after the game…
“His message was, like I said, that we need to take ownership. We lost that game and they outworked us. All we can do now is worry about what is in ahead of us. We have to put this behind us.”
On what the team needs to do to move forward…
“First of all, we need to stay together. That is first and foremost. We can’t linger on the past. Secondly, we need to pick up our energy some more. We won the last two games on our defensive effort. It wasn’t our offense and tonight we didn’t show much of a defensive effort. So moving forward, we are going to have to get better at that and do a better job of rebounding.”
South Alabama Head Coach Ronnie Arrow
On the game…
“That was just a tremendous effort. From where we came from the last game to come into this environment and play, this was a total team effort. I can’t be happier of any team that I have ever coached.”
On the last possession of regulation…
“Freddie (Goldstein) wants every big shot. He wants every big pass. He came off and he was looking for it, didn’t see anybody and jumped up and stuck it. He thinks that he is six foot eight. We want him with the ball because I feel that if anyone is going to make it that he is going to make it.”
On the comeback…
“It was just a total team effort. We came back and fought. Those are the games that we have been giving away. We haven’t stopped the bleeding. We stopped the bleeding and went ahead. We put a tourniquet on it and came back to win the game.”
On what he learned about his team…
“Character. You don’t understand the last game we just had. To have two good practices and come here and be able to win this game was really something. Again, I can’t be happier.”