The last time the No. 16 LSU men’s basketball team lost a Southeastern Conference home game, Mark Emmert was chancellor of the University and Sen. John Kerry was still eight months from losing his bid to become President of the United States. The Tigers extended their SEC home winning streak to 19 games Wednesday night with a 62-55 win against the Ole Miss Rebels. LSU’s last conference loss in the PMAC was a 70-64 nationally televised contest Feb. 29, 2004, against the University of Kentucky. Sophomore forward Tasmin Mitchell had a double-double for LSU with 19 points and 10 rebounds, and sophomore transfer guard Terry Martin added 15 points. Junior forward Glen Davis had a subpar performance, going 4-for-9 from the field and missing all three of his 3-point attempts to finish with 11 points and eight boards. The Tigers held the Rebels’ leading scorer, senior guard Bam Doyne, to eight points on 3-for-11 shooting. Junior center Dwayne Curtis, who missed the first nine games of the season with a stress fracture in his left foot, scored 11 points and collected 12 rebounds, notching his seventh double-double in 10 games this season. LSU coach John Brady said he was content with his team’s defense but hoped great defense mixed with poor offense does not become a habit in conference play. “From a defensive standpoint I don’t have many complaints,” Brady said. “But we can’t put it on our defense every night to win the game.” The Tigers jumped out to a quick 8-5 start with all but two of the points coming from senior forward Darnell Lazare. An 11-3 run by the Tigers pushed their lead to 24-13 and forced Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy to call his first timeout with 7:34 left in the first half. Kennedy’s team responded to the first-year coach’s pep talk, outscoring LSU 6-0 with almost 4:00 remaining. The Rebels stepped up their defense toward the end of the first half, forcing three shot clock violations on the Tigers in the final 6:45 of the half to help cut LSU’s lead to 29-23 going into the intermission. Five quick points by senior guard Clarence Sanders cut the Tigers’ lead to 43-42, forcing Brady to use a time-out after two missed 3-point attempts by Mitchell and Martin. The two forwards redeemed themselves not long after the time-out by hitting 3-pointers on consecutive plays and pushing the lead to 53-46, igniting the crowd of 7,094 that had been silent for the majority of the night. After connecting on one of two foul shots to push LSU’s lead to six points, sophomore guard Garrett Temple stole the basketball just past halfcourt from Rebels senior guard Todd Abernethy and hit two free throws. A Davis steal and dunk on the next Rebels’ possession locked up the victory for the Tigers. The Tigers held the Rebels to two free-throw attempts in the entire contest, and Temple said tough interior defense led to success on the perimeter. “Our post men did a great job of denying the post,” Temple said. “Keeping a team off the free-throw line is great for us. We just guarded them well on the perimeter and in the post. That’s why they only had 23 points in the first half.”
—–Contacct Tyler Batiste at [email protected]