Trendon Watford, Darius Days Lead LSU Basketball to 79-77 Statement SEC Win Over Arkansas

While the stat line was gaudy Wednesday night, it truly doesn't show the impact sophomore forward Darius Days had on the Tigers 79-77 win over Arkansas.

Days scored 16 points and grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds but it was his presence on the offensive glass in particular that quickly became the story in the second half. Of his nine offensive rebounds against the Razorbacks, five came in the second half as the Tigers would go on to capitalize on the extra opportunities, scoring 10 second chance points.

“Coach Wade preached in practice to stay on the glass, stay on the glass, stay on the glass,” Days said. “I was just very aggressive to the glass and my teammates were aggressive as well. It is very simple, we just stayed on the glass and did what we were supposed to do.”

The Tigers and Razorbacks exchanged blows multiple times in the second half with LSU turning a three-point halftime deficit into a seven point. Arkansas would slowly chip away at the deficit and regain a 72-71 lead with 2:46 remaining.

Days was the hero for the first 39 minutes and 30 seconds, but the final 32.3 seconds belonged to the freshman Trendon Watford. On two separate occasions in the final seconds, Will Wade put the ball in Watford's hands and both times he finished with two layups that also drew fouls.

The second was the dagger as he converted a left-hand layup with 8.4 seconds to go and capped it off with his seventh free throw on his eighth attempt. It was a crazy finish that included three and-ones to close the game.

“Coach Wade drew up a few plays for me coming out of bounds. He just trusted in me to do what I do every day,” Watford said. “I have to thank him and thank my teammates for putting me in that position.”

“For Trendon to miss the dunk and miss the bunny a couple minutes before that and both of them would have given us the lead – for him to do that and come back and make those winning plays and then have the poise to knock down the free-throws after the big plays is tremendous,” Wade said. “I’m very, very proud of him.”

In what was a whacky all-around stat line, perhaps the wackiest of all was the Tigers outscoring the Razorbacks 26-0 in second chance points.

Coach Will Wade, the players and Arkansas coach Eric Musselman all agreed that they had never been a part of a game where one team didn't have any second chance points.

Watford would finish with 21 points and nine rebounds while senior Skylar Mays would pour in 19 more.

Both teams traded blows for much of the first half as the lead was exchanged 10 times in the first 10 minutes. The back and forth wouldn't last long after that as a four minute scoring drought from the Tigers coupled with the Razorbacks persistence in the paint led to a 12-0 Arkansas run in a 3:12 span to grab a 35-24 lead with four minutes to go in the half.

The Razorbacks were led by Jimmy Whitt Jr. and Mason Jones, who combined for 27 of Arkansas' 40 first half points and would finish with 46 by game's end.

In need of a spark, sophomore forward Days stepped up in a big way, scoring seven points in the final four minutes of the first half as LSU closed on a 13-5 run of its to make it a 40-37 halftime deficit.

The Tigers will look to go 3-0 in conference play when Mississippi State comes to Baton Rouge on Saturday at 7 p.m.

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