If you had just clipped the sound audio from the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on Saturday, you would have thought you were in Tiger Stadium on a Saturday Night. The crowd and atmosphere almost willed the No. 13 LSU basketball team to a 82-80 overtime victory over No. 5 Tennessee.
The game felt like a culmination of the hard work and grit that head coach Will Wade has worked tirelessly to build and instill in this program in building it into a consistent winner again.
There was an outpouring of emotions for a number of different reasons at the end of that game. Wade was so thrilled with the victory that he took a microphone and addressed the crowd.
“I wanna thank everybody for coming today,” Wade said to the fans after the game. “This was awesome. This is what we’ve been working towards. Our team lays it on the line for Louisiana every night and we didn’t have the best circumstances today, but we found a way. That’s what we do in Louisiana. Boot Up!” 
While coach Wade was celebrating, there was a different type of outpouring of emotion from junior guard Skylar Mays, who pointed to the sky and raised up four fingers on each hand in honor of his fallen best friend Wayde Sims.
“They have five, but we have six.”
That was the line that hit closest to home during the hype video that the LSU Basketball twitter released yesterday and the game personified that message. Mays said in the postgame that he tries his best to make sure that Sims is still apart of this team and special season that’s going on in Baton Rouge.
“I just always want to make sure that Wayde is remembered,” Mays said. “Him meaning so much to me. He was my bestfriend. In a moment like that when you have the cameras on you, I try to remind people he’s still with us.”
Wayde was with LSU today but the Tigers also felt like they were playing a man down when they had to prep earlier this morning through team walk-throughs to be without sophomore point guard and leader Tremont Waters.
This was the first game he’s missed in his two year career at LSU and his absence would set the scene for what made the ending so much more spectacular.
With Waters gone the LSU offense did not flow as it usually does with him in it. The Tigers had to adjust and buckle down on defense and get to the foul line and take it to Tennessee.
Enter freshman guard Javonte Smart, who willed LSU emotionally and offensively into beating the Volunteers. Smart finished with 29 total points and 5 assists and was the one who sunk the critical two free throws at end of Overtime with 0.6 seconds left to ice the game away 82-80.
LSU now sits tied for first place in the Southeastern Conference standings with four games left to play in the league.

Gallery • 2 Photos

Mitchell Scaglione

LSU junior guard Skyler Mays (4) and freshmen guard Ja'vonte Smart (1) celebrate after the Tigers 82-80 victory over Tennesse on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019.