Pinson Eclipses 1,000 Career Points in 89-49 Win Over Demons

BATON ROUGE – Senior Xavier Pinson scored his 1,000th college career point in the first half of LSU’s 89-49 win over Northwestern State University Tuesday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center as the No. 19/20 Tigers ran their record to 10-0.

The Tigers held their third opponent of the season under 50 points and won their 28th consecutive game against Louisiana competition dating back to Nov. 2010.

Pinson entered the game nine points shy of 1,000 and he quickly began ticking the numbers off and passed the mark on a driving layup with 10:08 to go in the first half. The senior played his first three seasons at Missouri before transferring to LSU.

Pinson equaled his season high with 15 points, hitting 5-of-6 field goals including all three three-point attempts and both free throw attempt. He also had four assists and four steals.

Tari Eason, the reigning Southeastern Conference Player of the Week, had 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting and 4-of-4 at the line. Besides the Pinson 15 points, Efton Reid had his first collegiate double double with 15 points and 10 rebounds. Darius Days had 13 points and he is now two points shy of recording his 1,000th career point.

Alex Fudge off the bench had 8 points, 9 rebounds and six steals.

Kendal Coleman led Northwestern State (2-9) with 16 points and 13 rebounds and Cedric Garrett had 15 points.

The Demons were able to get a 6-4 lead in the game but LSU scored the next seven points to get the lead for good at 11:6 at the first media time out. The lead reached double figures at 22-11 on a Brandon Murray three with 9:23 to play in the opening half and increased the game to 20 at 33-13 with 5:35 to go.

LSU led at intermission, 41-15.

LSU scored 48 points in the second half and built as much as a 40-point advantage with 8:38 to play in the game.

The Tigers shot 33-of-74 from the field for 44.6 percent with six treys and 17-of-23 at the free throw line. Northwestern State made just 27.9 percent of their field goal attempts (17-61) with four treys and 11-of-18 at the line.

In the first half the Demons made just six field goals and 19.4 percent of their attempts.

LSU had 50 points in the paint and scored 17 points off the 17 Northwestern State turnovers. LSU out rebounded the Demons, 53-39.

The Tigers travel to Bossier City on Saturday for a 6 p.m. game at Brookshire Grocery Arena against Louisiana Tech. The Bulldogs defeated LSU-Shreveport Tuesday night in Ruston, 84-70.

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Head Coach Will Wade

Opening Statement…
“Well, we won, so that was good. (Xavier) Pinson got his 1,000th point of his career, congrats to him. I think (Darius) Days is two away from 1,000 himself. If he doesn’t get it on Saturday, then we’re in real trouble, so we hope he gets it. We did a better job limiting our turnovers with only 10 in this game, which is the first time in a long time that we limited our turnovers to our game goal. We had eight going into those last four or five minutes, so that was good. Our defensive rebounding still leaves a lot to be desired. We gave up 13 offensive rebounds, with No. 22 (Cedric Garrett) and No. 4 (Kendal Coleman) whipping our tails on the offensive glass. That’s got to get cleaned up and we’ve got to get more physical and drive guys back. They had 16 second-chance points off the 13 offensive rebounds; teams are going start to tee off on that if we can’t get that corrected. Our transition defense was improved. They had a very good attack against our press, and I thought they were well prepared for our pressure, so give them credit. Coleman’s a really good player and made for a great specialist. He was 16-of-24 on mid-range jump shots coming into tonight and he hit a few on us as well. It’s a win, we’ll take, and we’ll get a bigger challenge on Saturday.”

On Xavier Pinson’s performance…
“He played great. They’d try to go under the ball screens, but he’d hit three-points behind them, which was huge. He was able to get downhill and drive. That pass he had to (Tari) Eason in the first half was as good of a pass as you’ll see. X is such a good player and a calming influence for us as well. It may be his best game this year, in terms of complete flow of the game.”

Northwestern State Head Coach Mike McConathy

Opening Statement:

“We were 6-for-32 in the first half; we just did not get any shots down. We came out in the second half and put the pressure on and we scored a couple of buckets early, but they did a great job in their horns set. They got the ball to [Efton] Reid three or four times, and we had no answer for that. I cannot really be frustrated; we were trying. One guy was 0-for-8, and he is trying, another guy is 0-for-7; he is trying, but they’re not going in. But there is a guy who went 8-for-11, so maybe you try to get him 20 shots instead.”