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LSU Dominates Second Half, Defeats Northwestern St., 77-53LSU Dominates Second Half, Defeats Northwestern St., 77-53

LSU Dominates Second Half, Defeats Northwestern St., 77-53

Corey Chest finished with 10 rebounds and nine points for the Tigers.

Box Score

BATON ROUGE – The script seemed very familiar to the fans of LSU Basketball.

For the third-straight home game, the Tigers trailed after 20 minutes, this time 26-25 to Northwestern State. But in the end, the Tigers shot over 50 percent from the field in the second half and dominated the final 20 minutes to score a 77-53 win over the Demons on Friday evening at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

The 24-point victory margin marked the third-largest margin of victory in a game that LSU trailed at halftime since the 1964-65 season. The biggest was the 36-point victory margin over Nicholls in the 2001-02 season after the Tigers trailed Nicholls, 25-22, before winning 71-35.

LSU (6-1) scored the first five points of the second half after an opening miss by the Demons. Cam Carter took a pass from Corey Chest and hit a three-pointer to give LSU the lead for good at 28-26. Northwestern State turned the ball over and Chest and Carter reversed roles with Chest taking a Carter pass for a 30-26 advantage.

The Demons had a last swing with a three-pointer that cut the game to 30-29 before the Tigers went on a 17-point run over some six minutes of play that ballooned the Tigers lead to 47-29 with 12:49 in the game. The Tigers were never threatened the rest of the way, leading by as much as 29 with 4:55 to go in the contest.

LSU was unable to get the offense going in the first half of play as the Demons threw both zone and man-to-man at LSU, and the Tigers on several possessions ran the shot clock down to near the end. The Demons (2-5) led by as much as six, 19-13, with 7:29 to go in the first half. LSU tied the game at 19-19 and 22-22 but could never get the lead going into the half, trialing 26-25.

Jordan Sears for the second straight game hit six three-pointers in scoring 18 points, while Carter posted 15, and Jalen Reed and Vyctorius Miller had 11 points each. Chest just missed a double double with 10 rebounds and nine rebounds.

After shooting just 34 percent in the first half and 3-of-13 from distance, the Tigers again exploded in the second half, shooting 17-of-32 (53.1 percent), hit 7-of-14 three-pointers and 11-of-12 at the free throw line. LSU scored 52 second half points.

For the game, LSU finished 26-of-58 (44.8 percent) with 10-of-27 from distance (37.0 percent). LSU was a very good 15-of-18 (83.3 percent) from the line.

The Demons shot 31.3 percent for the game (21-of-67) including 8-of-26 (30.8 percent) from distance. NSU made just 3-of-10 at the free throw line.

Northwestern State, which had a 22-15 advantage in the first half, finished the game with a 40-39 advantage overall.

LSU forced 19 turnovers and had 14 points off NSU turnovers and a 32-20 advantage in points in the paint.

The Demons were led by Jon Sanders with four three-pointers and 14 points.

The Tigers are back in action Tuesday night at 8 p.m. at the Maravich Center against Florida State in the SEC/ACC Challenge game. Tickets are on sale at LSUTix.net. Also, the special for Black Friday weekend continues as fans can purchase a ticket for either the Florida State, Stetson (Dec. 17) or UNO (Dec. 22) game and receive a free ticket for the Jan. 4 SEC opener against Vanderbilt.

Postgame Quotes

  • LSU vs. Northwestern State Men’s Basketball
    November 29, 2024
    Post-Game Quotes

    LSU Head Coach Matt McMahon

    Opening Statement…
    “Hope everybody had a happy Thanksgiving. Great credit to (Northwestern State Head) Coach (Rick) Cabrera and Northwestern State in the first half. I thought they had a really good plan. Their mixing of defenses; even in possessions they change coverages and that really bothered us and had us on our heels. I thought our defense was good enough in the first half minus some second shot opportunities. But was really pleased with our guys coming out of the break. Really turned up the pressure defensively and enabled us to get out in transition and make some big time plays there. I thought much better job attacking the zone, the matchup and then when they would switch to man in the middle of the possession. Thought the ball moved a lot better in the second half and we’re thankful to get the win. Got a great opportunity coming up on Tuesday against a really good Florida State team here in the PMAC. I want to have a great atmosphere at 8 o’clock on Tuesday night.”

    On how Cam Carter started off slow and his flow in the offense…
    “I’ll have to look at the film and see. But I think, it’s not just Cam (Carter). I think just the whole deal. You have to come out locked in and ready to go. I didn’t think we were very aggressive coming out as a whole on the offensive side of the ball. So, we didn’t create a lot of advantages in the first half. I think we forced 12 turnovers in the first half and had zero transition points. That’s crazy. So, I thought as you saw there at the start of the second half, we turned them over and now we sprinted the floor, got out in transition, got out on an open three, got a couple easy baskets there and were able to get more into the flow in the second half.

    LSU Guard Jordan Sears
    On confidence from three…
    “The work I put in every day shows. The confidence is always going to be there. Even when I miss, everything feels good leaving my hand. That confidence comes from working out every day.”

    On second-half adjustments…
    “We played to their pace instead of playing to our own. That really showed. In the second half, we played to our own pace, sped them up, and you can see the result of what happens when we do our thing.”

    LSU Forward Corey Chest
    On his rebounding…
    “I’m trying to lead the team in rebounds on the defensive end and the offensive end. We do a defensive and rebounding drill at practice every day at a high level, and it has shown.”

    On impact after red-shirt season…
    “I redshirted last year. Taking that time off, I was in the gym constantly, day in, day out. I was trying to get better and get ready to compete in the SEC.”

    Northwestern State Head Coach Rick Cabrera

    On their overall thoughts on the game…
    “I’m proud and disappointed at the same time. I don’t know if those two words can correlate but I’m going to make them correlate tonight. I’m proud that in the first half we competed. We came in with a lead. I’m disappointed because that wasn’t the team that I know of. It reflects on me. I have got to do a better job of making them prepared and not be satisfied going into the second half.”

    On how this shapes preparing for the next opponent…
    “Well next opponent is a conference game. Alright, so we got to lock in and kind of flush this. We’ll watch film, learn from it. I tell my guys we always flush losses. We don’t talk about them too much after we watch film and then we got to focus on Incarnate Word with our first conference game. We’ve got to focus on them come Thursday.”