LSU Basketball Controls Ole Miss From Start to Finish Behind Strong Veteran Performances, Win 75-61
Without one of its brightest stars, a veteran LSU basketball team looked like a well oiled machine on Saturday evening in Oxford, knocking off Ole Miss 75-61 to win its second straight SEC contest.
Despite the quick 36-hour turnaround, the Tigers came out firing on both offense and defense. LSU (8-2, 3-1) jumped out to a 15-2 lead in the early minutes and held the Rebels without a field goal for the first 5:40 minutes of the game.
Extremely active hands on defense and an explosive start on offense helped the Tigers control the game practically from the jump, relying heavily on their veterans with freshman Cam Thomas going down with an ankle injury less than two minutes into the game. The freshman phenom who came into the game averaging an SEC high 24.8 points per game, turned his ankle and missed most of Saturday's outing.
As a result, LSU received exemplary offensive performances from sophomore Trendon Watford and junior Javonte Smart. Watford and Smart were aggressive and efficient with Thomas out of the lineup with Smart scoring 17 points and five assists while Watford poured in a game high 21 points, six rebounds and four assists.
Watford shrugged off what had been a bit of a dry spell playing through an ankle injury while Smart continued his stellar shooting display.
"This is the team we can be, we played like we need to play," Will Wade said. "I told our guys in the locker room afterwards, we don't need to go back. We gotta be moving forward from here on out with the way we prepared and the way we went about things. Our focus was through the roof."
Heading into the game, Ole Miss was highly regarded as one of the top defensive teams in the SEC while the Tigers had one of the best offenses. Not only was LSU's 48% shooting from the field a solid evening's work but the Tigers were able to hold Ole Miss to just 35% shooting.
The intense defensive effort and improved defensive rebounding limited Ole Miss' second chance opportunities. The Tigers lock down perimeter defense forced 20 Rebel turnovers and were able to turn them into 29 points of turnovers. On the opposite end, LSU committed 16 turnovers on an Ole Miss defense that came in forcing nearly 19 a game.
"We've been practicing defense for a while," Smart said. "Eric Gaines is one of our great defenders so we just keep trying to attack defense. It's been one of our biggest weaknesses and we're just trying to make it one of our strengths."
Every time Ole Miss made a run, LSU answered with a big shot on the other end, a trend that continued into the second half as the Tigers were able to extend the second half lead to as many as 22 points.
The Tigers will now have four days to prepare for an extremely tough Arkansas squad that has caused LSU problems the last two years under Eric Musselman.
"We were ready to go and are very pleased with our guys," Wade said. "We were a totally different team, we were a real team, a championship level team."
