In a game where much of the pre-match chatter focused around how the LSU men’s basketball team would stop Ole Miss senior guard Marshall Henderson, it was the Rebels who were looking for an answer to stop Tigers senior guard Andre Stringer once the game started.
Unfortunately for LSU, Ole Miss found the solution to its problem before the Tigers could do the same.
Coming back from three points down with a little more than a minute to play, the Rebels (11-5, 2-1 Southeastern Conference) popped off a 23-6 run to take down LSU (10-5, 1-2 SEC) in overtime, 88-74.
“It was really disappointing there in overtime getting outscored 19-5,”said LSU coach Johnny Jones. “But that was indicative of the game our guys played out there tonight. … [The shots] just weren’t there at the end of regulation.”
Henderson, who spent the last two games benched with a suspension, posted a game-high 25 points, including six from downtown.
Stringer threw up a career-high 23 points in the return to his home state of Mississippi Wednesday night.
“I told him today at practice that I thought he was going to have the opportunity to do some special things for us,” Jones said on his post game radio show. “He played really big for us.”
The final shot of regulation came as somewhat of a surprise when junior guard Anthony Hickey — who finished with a dismal 4-of-16 shooting clip from the field — took the last heave from 14 feet out instead of Stringer, who missed just three of his 10 shots, including five scores from beyond the arc.
Jones defended his decision to not call a timeout in the waning seconds of the game in order to set up the Hickey shot by saying that Ole Miss was switching defensive schemes throughout the game, and he wanted to catch them in the man-to-man coverage they were in at the time.
“I wanted to make sure they were in a defense our guys were comfortable in,” Jones said. “We caught them in the defense we wanted them in… [Hickey] was able to get a great look at the basket, but unfortunately that shot didn’t go down.”
One of the leading factors for the Tigers’ late-game struggles were early foul trouble.
Despite the strong shooting display Stringer put on throughout the game, the Jackson, Miss., native found himself sidelined for large portions of the night after recording four personal fouls early on.
Ole Miss stepped to the line 27 times Wednesday night, making 22 free throws — seven of which came in overtime.
On the Tigers’ side of the court, Jones applauded his team for making it to the free throw line 30 times against the Rebels, but was quick to add the disappointment in making only 18 of those attempts from the stripe.
LSU returns to Baton Rouge Saturday when the Tigers continue SEC play against Vanderbilt this weekend.