The LSU men’s basketball team woke up Sunday afternoon faster than a freshman who overslept a mid-term.Facing its largest deficit of the conference season, LSU (19-4, 7-1) put together a 17-0 run to turn a slow start against Alabama (13-10, 3-6) into a 76-62 win.”We got off to a real sluggish start, and quite frankly I was sort of surprised,” said LSU men’s basketball coach Trent Johnson. “But it’s no surprise, to this team or to me that once we find out the flow of the game we try to find a way to wear people down.”Five minutes into an early Sunday tipoff, the 10,578 fans in attendance at the PMAC had to be wondering if the Tigers were still hitting the snooze button. Alabama raced out to an 11-2 lead fueled by four LSU turnovers, while the Tigers shot 1-of-6 from the field.”We came onto the court without intensity,” said senior guard Garrett Temple. “Coach [Johnson] was a little upset … We were just sluggish offensively. We were not executing like we know we can.”Then the alarm went off.LSU outscored Alabama, 36-17, from the 14-minute mark of the first half. Senior guard Marcus Thornton shot 80 percent from the field for 20 first-half points on the way to a 22-point performance.Junior forward Tasmin Mitchell made a rare 3-point appearance, shooting 2-of-2 from the arc on the day for 16 points and 11 rebounds overall — his sixth double-double of the season.”I was just open at the top more than I was open at the bottom,” Mitchell said. “I just shot wide open shots.”Temple shot 2-of-3 from 3-point range to finish with 10 points, his highest total since notching 14 at Ole Miss on Jan. 17.”Coach always wants me to be aggressive, especially going toward the rim,” Temple said.
“I haven’t been scoring. My wrist hurts, so my outside jump shot isn’t as comfortable, so I tried to get to the rim a little bit and put up some more points for the team.”Alabama gave away the lead and the game over a dismal five-minute stretch in the first half. The Crimson Tide missed six shots from the field and shot 0-for-3 from the free throw line from the eight-minute mark to the three-minute mark of the first half.”There were times when we were able to get the ball where we wanted to get it around the basket,” said Alabama interim coach Philip Pearson. “We just couldn’t convert the shots, and I think a lot of that had to do with the defensive pressure.”Alabama sophomore guard Senario Hillman, who buried LSU with 24 points in the teams’ first meeting, finished with 11 points while shooting 28 percent from the field.
LSU’s bench saw some of its most extensive play of the conference season. Freshman guard Chris Bass finished with five points, his first scoring output in conference play. Senior forward Quintin Thornton has been battling injuries for much of the past three weeks but managed four points in 12 minutes.”Chris Bass in the first half was real, real good,” Johnson said. “Down the stretch in the second half, near the 10-minute mark, we were able to rest a lot of guys and get some guys some meaningful minutes against good players.”
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Contact David Helman at [email protected]