LSU senior guard Marcus Thornton scored a combined 13 points in the Tigers’ first two games this season.But Thornton, the Southeastern Conference’s top returning scorer from last season, found his stroke Sunday in the PMAC, dropping a game-high 25 in LSU’s 91-60 victory against Northwestern State (2-2).The Tigers (3-0) used a late first half run to stretch the game open and ended the last nine minutes of the first half on a 26-3 run. LSU took a 29-point lead into halftime, 48-19.Thornton scored 20 of his 25 in the first half, including 11 during the late first-half run.”Probably the first two games, it was jitters I had,” Thornton said. “I felt like I had to settle down this game, and thankfully my teammates knew it, and that’s what happened.”The Baton Rouge native finished the game 10-for-16 from the floor and 3-for-6 from behind the arc.But coach Trent Johnson said Thornton’s defense is what he likes the most.”The thing that impressed me about Marcus is that he is committed defensively and exerting a lot of energy,” Johnson said. “People think that if you don’t have 15 or 16 points and you don’t make a great block or those types of things, that you aren’t playing well. He is doing a good job.”As a team, LSU continued to control the defensive end of the floor, just as it had in previous games.The Tigers held their opponents to a combined 110 points in the first two games of the season, and LSU held the Demons to 21-for-61 shooting from the floor Sunday, limiting them to their lowest point total of the season.Some players said they were disappointed in themselves for allowing Northwestern to score 41 points in the second half after shutting them down in the first half.”We have a young team, the guys who were playing a lot of  minutes in the second half,” said senior guard Garrett Temple. “We might have gotten complacent. That’s one thing we need to work on.”No Demon player scored in double-digits on the night, and the Tigers had 10 blocks and 13 steals. LSU also forced 22 Northwestern turnovers.LSU’s bench played a major role for the second game in a row.No starter played more than 24 minutes in the contest, and no starter saw action in the last nine minutes of the game.LSU’s bench scored 36 points and accounted for 12 of the team’s 19 assists and more than half of the team’s rebounds.The Tigers’ next game is Friday against Centenary in the second weekend of the LSU Invitational.
—-Contact Johanathan Brooks at [email protected]