LSU basketball coach John Brady knew it was going to be tough for the Tigers to recover from the loss of five seniors from last year’s team.
With all five freshmen LSU signed expected to contribute early, the transition from experienced to raw was going to be a hurdle the Tigers would have to jump early.
What Brady did not expect was the case of schizophrenia his team experienced in Monday night’s 77-64 win over the Southeastern All Stars in LSU’s final exhibition game of the preseason. LSU opens the regular season Nov. 21 in the PMAC against crosstown rival Southern.
After struggling mightily in the first half and falling behind 37-28 at the intermission, the youthful Tigers turned it around, outscoring the All Stars 49-27 in the second half.
“I think [in] the second half our team played good enough,” Brady said.
“49-27 and we turn a poor first half in to a better second half. And I like what we did there. The first half, I don’t even know who that team was.”
In the first half, the team was a poor-shooting, turnover-prone, bad-decision making squad that looked like a fish out of water.
The Tigers shot 35.5 percent from the field, committed 14 turnovers and were 0-for-7 from behind the 3-point line.
“We need to get better in a hurry,” Brady said. “We just made careless plays, just mind-boggling plays to me. We didn’t finish balls. But a 22-point win in the second half, to turn that around with how poorly we played in the first half was a positive thing and we need to be able to do that longer periods of time and not in spurts.”
The poor first half play started from the onset, as the All Stars jumped out to a quick 7-0 lead.
With 10:15 remaining in the first half, LSU trailed 20-11 and was being badly outplayed.
Freshman Darnell Lazare, who scored 15 points on 7-of-15 shooting, said Brady made the team refocus during halftime.
“At halftime, Coach Brady gave us a speech on what we were doing wrong and what we needed to do better,” Lazare said. “That really got our emotions up and got us focused and got us playing a little better. When we came out, we really wanted to focus on our defense. We missed a lot of shots, but we knew our offense was going to come around.”
LSU came out firing in the second half, going on a 12-2 run and taking its first lead at 16:16 remaining, pulling ahead 40-39.
“He didn’t really throw anything around, but he said some motivational words,” said LSU guard Darrel Mitchell of Brady’s halftime actions. “And that kind of made me play much harder. He never directed it at anybody, it was just as a whole, and it just made us play a whole lot better in the second half.”
After the All Stars took back the lead at 41-40, the Tigers never looked back, leading by as much as 16 points before the final outcome was decided.
Freshman Brandon Bass led the Tigers, scoring 21 points and pulling down 12 rebounds in 32 minutes of action.
LSU now will begin preparing for Southern in its first regular season game of the year Friday.
“I feel like everybody just needs to get more focused,” said junior point guard Xavier Whipple. “We need to realize what’s at stake. We need to play together and play smarter. I think we’re going to come out and practice hard on Wednesday and Thursday, and I think we’ll be ready on Friday.”