The LSU men’s basketball team’s final game of the holiday season finished much like the rest of the past month — a mixed result.The Tigers (12-3, 0-1) achieved LSU coach Trent Johnson’s goal of outrebounding Alabama (11-4, 1-0) but fell short in a 65-59 loss to the Crimson Tide.LSU turned the ball over 16 times, four more than its average, and gave up 24 points to Alabama guard Senario Hillman. Johnson said his team’s mental lapses in crunch time kept the Tigers from the win.”There were crucial points in the game, especially in the second half where their physicality and their ability to get to loose balls and come up with loose balls hurt us,” Johnson said in a postgame radio interview. “We’ve got to get to a point and understand that at crucial times in a game, as much as we talk about it as much as we drill it … you’ve got to be stronger in those situations and those positions and make big plays, and we didn’t.”With the loss, LSU is winless on the road this season in three tries.The weekend capped off what has been a wild month for the Tigers. The team has been on both sides of blowouts, narrowly dodged upset bids and notched important home victories since the fall semester ended Dec. 13.”I like that fact that I feel comfortable where we’re at offensively,” Johnson said in an interview Jan. 8. “We need to continue to be tough and compete … that’s the next step for us, we’ve got to continue to improve.”LSU ended its non-conference schedule Jan. 6 at Utah. The Tigers suffered their first major setback of the season in Salt Lake City. They were outscored by 21 points in the second half of a 91-61 loss to the Utes.The blowout was LSU’s second road loss in as many road games — a Dec. 17 trip to Houston didn’t turn out much better. The Tigers led for 30 seconds, the first 30 seconds, against Texas A&M, but the Aggies took control and would not let go on the way to a 72-61 win.”The only thing I feel good about, and it’s really hard for me to accept, but the bottom line is in non-conference we’re 12-2 and the two teams that beat us were better basketball teams than we are,” Johnson said. The Tigers played five teams from Louisiana during the month off with the usual ups and downs. They cruised to an 87-41 win against Grambling State on the last day of final exams and crushed Southeastern, 90-61, on New Year’s Day. But games against Nicholls State, McNeese State and Louisiana-Lafayette didn’t go quite as smoothly.LSU downed Nicholls by a comfortable 12-point margin but needed late free throws from senior forward Tasmin Mitchell to defeat McNeese, 62-59. Perhaps even more dramatic was the 81-79 win against the Ragin’ Cajuns on New Year’s Eve.”We came back and didn’t play very well at home against a team that’s 4-8,” Johnson said after Louisiana-Lafayette outscored the Tigers 17-11 in the game’s final four minutes. “We’ve got to get to where we come off emotional, hard-fought losses or wins — where we have a day off, and then we have a game — we’ve got to play. We’ve got to play well.”Around the time many LSU students were celebrating Christmas, the Tigers had plenty to celebrate themselves. Washington State, LSU’s most formidable non-conference home opponent, came to Baton Rouge on Dec. 27 with the nation’s best scoring defense. The Tigers greeted them with a defensive game plan and came out with a 64-52 victory against the Cougars.The new semester has started, but the Tigers don’t stop anytime soon. LSU plays six more games in January, with three games in the next week.
 
 
— Contact David Helman at [email protected]