After four straight debilitating road losses to put their postseason hopes in peril, conventional wisdom expected LSU to come out frustrated.
Pitted against a depleted Mississippi State club that had lost seven straight Southeastern Conference games, the matchup seemed to be the perfect remedy for the downtrodden Tigers with the vaunted No. 18 Kentucky Wildcats looming in Lexington.
There was no frustration, though, according to junior guard Anthony Hickey.
“It was just basketball,” Hickey said. “We just had to protect our court.”
Freshman forward Jarell Martin poured in a career-high 20 points against a depleted Mississippi State frontcourt while classmate Jordan Mickey scored 19 of his own, propelling LSU to a comfortable 92-81 win in the PMAC.
For a few minutes, it appeared the Tigers (16-9, 7-6 SEC) would run the Bulldogs straight out of the PMAC before the 7,689 in attendance could settle in, as LSU rattled off a 14-0 run, taking advantage of four Bulldog turnovers in the first four minutes.
LSU coach Johnny Jones refused to point to his team’s early success as a result of pent-up frustration from its recent shortcomings, instead labeling the onslaught as pinpoint execution.
“I just think we came out and played well in the first half,” Jones said. “A lot of stuff was off the break. We got steals on their end of the floor, played good defensively and created those turnovers into scoring opportunities.”
Martin, whose previous career-high came in an 18-point performance off the bench at South Carolina, said he didn’t get caught up in forcing shots or inserting himself where he didn’t need to be.
“I stayed patient and let the game come to me,” Martin said. “Teammates found me when I was wide open. I was aggressive, got offensive rebounds and put it back up.”
A layup from freshman guard Tim Quarterman with 11:50 to go in the first half pushed the Tigers’ lead to 24-4 headed into the second official timeout.
Bulldog sophomore Craig Sword outscored the Tigers 8-2 in the next two minutes, followed by a 6-0 spurt from freshman I.J. Ready to whittle the Tigers’ lead down to eight.
Sword finished the game with a career-high 33 points, one of three Bulldogs in double figures.
“Their big guys set great screens for [Sword] and he was able to get off the screens well with his speed,” Hickey said. “We did a bad job of executing on the defensive end and being on the right spots.”
Hickey canned two consecutive 3-pointers when the Tigers’ lead was at single digits, pushing it back to 13 before the Tigers settled for a 42-31 halftime advantage.
With its lead back down to nine just four minutes in to the second half, the Tigers ripped off a 6-0 run behind two 3-pointers from senior guard Andre Stringer to buoy it’s lead to 15.
From there, the Bulldogs never climbed to within single digits.
Labeled by Hickey as a “setup” game, LSU was still left searching for a complete effort as it allowed two 20-point leads to shrink in each half with a myriad of careless turnovers and mental lapses.
“We didn’t put together a full game tonight,” Mickey said. “We stopped doing what we had to do, had a lack of communication on the floor and didn’t execute.”