The LSU basketball team dropped the ball in its first road test of the season, falling 71-63 at Coastal Carolina on Tuesday night.
The Chanticleers held a 14-point advantage with 13 minutes to play, but LSU stormed back to within one at the six-minute mark.
However, foul troubles, which put Coastal in the bonus, doomed LSU late and Carolina scored 8 points off free throws in the final three minutes to seal the game.
LSU struggled on the boards, losing the rebounding battle, 53-34, and allowing Chanticleer junior forward Sam McLaurin 16 boards along with his 13 points.
“I was very disappointed in inability to get it done on glass,” said LSU coach Trent Johnson in his postgame radio interview. “That’s a part of us mentally that we did not sustain a concentrated effort in for 40 minutes.”
Junior guard Anthony Raffa led Coastal Carolina and all scorers with 20.
LSU held an early nine-point lead, but made just 5 shots from the field in a 19-minute span that had LSU in trouble midway through the second half.
The Tigers shot just 26 percent and turned the ball over 11 times in the first half.
“On the offensive end, I just felt like we tried to do too many things on our own,” Johnson said. “We didn’t get some good looks because we didn’t pass it crisply tonight.”
But the Tigers clawed their way back, as sophomore guard Ralston Turner hit a three-pointer, found senior forward Storm Warren for a give-and-go dunk and made a runner in the lane.
Two minutes later, junior transfer center Justin Hamilton poured in five consecutive points to bring LSU’s deficit to just a single point.
But LSU’s early cold shooting returned and the Chanticleers poured in late free throws after reaching the bonus from the stripe midway through the final half.
LSU finished the night shooting just 35 percent and made only 5 of their 19 3-point attempts.
LSU briefly threatened in the final stages when sophomore guard Andre Stringer’s three-point play cut the Carolina lead to three with 1:52 to play.
The Tigers would score just two more points before Turner’s uncontested and irrelevant 3-pointer at the final buzzer.
“There were some shots that were sped up because of the pressure of situation, and our guys didn’t handle it great late,” Johnson said.
Turner and Warren led the way for the Tigers, as Turner poured in 15 points off 5-of-11 shooting and Warren spurred LSU early, finishing with 15 points and nine rebounds.
LSU opened an 18-9 advantage in the game’s early stages when both teams were pushing the ball up the floor and playing sloppy with the basketball, leading to a slew of turnovers and poor shots.
But the Tigers’ quickly found themselves in trouble, failing to record a made field goal in the final 5:13 of the the first half and failing to slow Coastal’s fast break offense to trail by 10 at the break.
LSU continues its stay in South Carolina when the Tigers play Northwestern in the first round of the eight-team Charleston Classic Thursday afternoon.
 
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Contact Chris Abshire at [email protected]