With 12 minutes, 45 seconds left in the first half Saturday, LSU went down by 14 points to Mississippi State, the next-to-last-place team in the SEC.
“It was a weird beginning of the game,” LSU senior guard Keith Hornsby said.
It hardly seemed likely that by the end, after an 88-77 LSU victory, that the Tigers would hold sole possession of first place in the league.
Then the team that confounds but never gives up, roared back, blowing the doors off the visiting Bulldogs. LSU took a 43-35 halftime lead that ballooned to as many as 20 with 11:28 left, a 59-25 surge over a 21-minute span.
And the Tigers, who stood 7-5 before the SEC season began, bottoming out with that disappointing home defeat to Wake Forest on December 29, are atop the league.
“I think we have a very competitive team,” said fourth-year head coach Johnny Jones, whose Tigers are now 15-7 overall, 8-2 in the SEC, a game ahead of South Carolina, Texas A&M and Kentucky (all 7-3) and two games up on Florida and Georgia (both 6-4) as things begin to shake out in the 18-game league slate.
“We’re in an excellent league. Night in and night out anyone can be beaten and if you’re playing well you can have success.”
LSU is certainly playing well, winning four of its last five with that lone defeat by two points to No. 1 Oklahoma a week earlier in a rare break from conference play.
Jones, remarkably patient with his team, brought up again Saturday that the Tigers at the start of the season had to find their way without the departed Jarell Martin and Jordan Mickey, who left after their sophomore years for the NBA, and that LSU was beginning without transfer Craig Victor and Hornsby.
“To put a team together with a group of freshmen and some returning guys was going to take some time,” Jones said. “And we certainly understood that. We didn’t feel like we were going to get off to an undefeated season and knew it was going to take some time.
“We feel like the team is jelling, we’re getting better and we’re growing as a team. It wasn’t going to happen overnight, we’ve made progress and we still have a long way to go.”
His point about the freshmen was punctuated Saturday by guard Antonio Blakeney, he of the 45-inch vertical leap whose outside shot was deadly against State. Blakeney had a career line, a game-high 31 points that included 4 of 8 on 3-pointers, seven rebounds and a couple of assists. He played 31 minutes and didn’t have a turnover. He had scored 47 points total in his previous five games, including five at Auburn when LSU won there last Tuesday.
“He was great,” Hornsby said. “Am I surprised by what he did? No. Heck, no. He’s a really confident basketball player and when he’s going he’s really dangerous and he got great opportunities tonight and took advantage of them. And that could happen any night.”
Blakeney admitted it’s been a while since he had a game like this one. He started the season like a future scoring machine but then had a long stretch where he had to find his way.
“Glad this came. Hopefully it keeps coming for me,” Blakeney said.
“I believe in the process and understand the ups and downs. In basketball you’re not going to every level and do it right away. I had times in high school where I went through slumps or times it was difficult but you just have to fight through it.”
The other freshman, Ben Simmons, was his usual self. There was no learning curve, it appeared, for the do-everything Australian, who had a typical Simmons game with 16 points, a game-high nine rebounds, and seven assists, two blocks and three steals.
“I was just taking what they gave me,” Simmons said.
LSU was 10-for-22 on 3-pointers, including 5 of 10 by Hornsby.
Hornsby, who missed the first seven games of the season recovering from surgery, had one of his best all-around performances Saturday, scoring 15 of his 25 points in the first half as he also had four rebounds, five assists and a steal.
“We came out sluggish. I don’t know why necessarily,” said Hornsby, who had nine points between the time State had its biggest lead and halftime. “We just had to figure out their defense.”
Once they did, of course, there was no stopping LSU.
“I think we’re getting better every day,” Simmons said. “We’re improving on finishing games out and playing the full 40 minutes and ultimately win games and not worry about individual stats. Antonio’s got it going we’re finding him. Keith’s got it going we’re finding him. Whoever it is we’re trying to win.”
It was Mark Twain who reportedly said that “reports of my death were greatly exaggerated.” Same might be said of the LSU team that seemed most unlikely to be leading the SEC 10 games in, but it’s all there for the Tigers’ taking.
“We’re excited about the way that we’ve played,” Jones said. “We sit there 7-2 after the first nine games of conference play and get off to a great start at 1-0 in the second part of the conference. We’re sitting there in first place. That’s huge. We’re 10 games in and we’re excited about that but our approach has to remain the same. Take it one game at a time so we can enjoy the journey like we would like to at the end.”
Wednesday they go to the aforementioned South Carolina, which got into the mix Saturday by knocking off Texas A&M, which lost earlier in the week to Vanderbilt. Then LSU comes home for A&M and Alabama.
“It’s a huge week for us next week, kind of a defining week,” Hornsby said with the wisdom of being LSU’s most experienced player and along with Josh Gray one of only two seniors.
“You just never know what can happen. The SEC is such a tough league. Anybody can win on any night. But the way we’re going, I like it. Just gotta be consistent.”