So close. Again. The LSU men’s basketball team had a second consecutive good effort foiled as Mississippi State (19-8, 7-5) outgunned the Tigers (9-17, 0-12), 60-59, on Saturday in the PMAC. “Well, I thought Mississippi State made some tough threes and the plays they needed to make,” said LSU coach Trent Johnson. “I thought we did a very, very good job of executing.”But the execution came up a bit short. Senior forward Tasmin Mitchell led LSU with 25 points and nine rebounds, sophomore forward Storm Warren had 14 points and freshman forward Dennis Harris contributed 10 points in the losing effort. The finish couldn’t have been more dramatic. Down 57-56, Mitchell nailed what looked to be the game-winning 3-pointer with just 16 ticks left on the clock. Enter Bulldog junior guard Phil Turner. The Bulldogs raced downcourt, neglecting to call a timeout. They didn’t need one. Turner received a kick-out pass from sophomore guard Dee Bost and cooly drained a contested shot from beyond the arc to put Mississippi State up by the final tally. “One of the things they’ve always been told in late game situations is that you trust your defense, and it’s going to be a man,” Johnson said. “Washington State was a similar type of situation. Utah was similar too. I can’t fault what happened in the stretch. No question. You have a guy in transition who’s a good shooter, and we overhelped.”The Tigers actually had a chance at a final shot to win the game. Turner’s shot came with seven seconds still on the clock. LSU junior guard Bo Spencer received the inbound pass and heaved a halfcourt shot with close to three seconds remaining. “From day one, when we practiced late clock situations and you have no timeouts, you get it to your best ballhandler, and you have to go make a play at the basket,” Johnson said. “You can go the length of the floor in three seconds uncontested. There were six. He was well aware of it. Well, he’s been told what to do in those situations.”Spencer “was trying to do too much,” Johnson added.”I’m not going to blame him,” Johnson said. “It’s tough to execute in those situations.”Spencer’s desperation shot missed the goal completely and landed out of bounds with 1.7 seconds remaining on the clock. After a series of fouls, LSU somehow found another opportunity to almost pull off the improbable. Mitchell intercepted the Bulldogs’ final inbound pass near halfcourt with 1.1 seconds left. He immediately heaved up a last-gasp shot attempt from halfcourt only to have Turner swat the ball out of his hands. Mitchell thought he was fouled. “Without a doubt,” Mitchell said. “It had to be before the buzzer went off. When I got the ball, I was about to throw it up. He hit my hand. He hit the ball too. He hit hand and ball.”Johnson was a little less opinionated on the situation. “I didn’t see it,” Johnson said. “If he was fouled, they would have called it. It is what it is.”Johnson was nevertheless pleased with the effort from a team that could have given up long ago. Statistically, this team could be the worst team in LSU basketball history. “There was something I wrote on the board after Arkansas [on Feb. 10],” Johnson said. “It said, ‘The rewards in effort will only be seen through the ability to continue to compete and not quit.’ Yeah, we’re 0-12 and 9-17. But have we gotten better? Yeah. There’s no question.”
 
 
 
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