A week removed from perhaps its most complete performance of the season against College of Charleston, the LSU men’s basketball team fell into early shooting woes against Southern Miss on Monday night in the PMAC.
Then, with a little help from scrappy defense and dominance on the boards, the Tigers (10-2) clawed into the Golden Eagles’ (5-6) early lead on their way to an 87-67 win. It was the seventh straight victory for LSU in its non-conference slate.
“We knew coming into the game that Southern Miss would be a challenge,” said LSU coach Johnny Jones. “We knew that they would play extremely hard and that we would get a great effort from them. True to form, I thought they did a great job of getting off to a really good start.”
Five players were in double-figures for the Tigers, including double-double performances from sophomore guard Tim Quarterman and sophomore forward Jordan Mickey.
“We moved the ball well,” Jones said. “What our post guys were able to do, they weren’t trying to force the action. They were poised under pressure, which is really important. We were able to hit cutters going under the basket.”
Sophomore forward Jarell Martin led the Tigers in scoring with 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting, which was two points shy of his career-high. He also chipped in 9 rebounds.
“We’re on a seven-game winning streak, so that’s definitely good leading up into [Southeastern Conference] play,” Martin said. “We got to keep on going from here. We can’t let up. We got to keep coming out with the same mindset.”
LSU created 24 points off 13 Southern Miss turnovers. On back-to-back possession late in the first half, freshman guard Jayln Patterson and junior guard Josh Gray swiped Golden Eagle ball-handlers for easy layups on the opposite end. From there, the Tigers never looked back.
It was the first game back for the regular starter Gray, who injured his ankle against Sam Houston State earlier this year.
“I feel like we played pretty good tonight with Josh in the starting lineup,” Mickey said. “We just came out a little flat. We didn’t have the energy we needed to start off the game in the first few minutes, but we were able to pick it up a notch and get the win.”
The Tigers started 0-of-9 from the field four minutes into the first half but fought back to finish the half on a 18-of-29 run to take a 49-33 lead against the Golden Eagles.
Southern Miss led by as many seven with 16:01 to go in the first half, but LSU rallied, going on a 12-0 run late in the first half on its way to leading by as many as 23 points.
“We just try to stay confident,” Quarterman said. “There was plenty of basketball left to play. Our team did a good job of moving the ball around and creating open shots.”
LSU began to swarm on defense and jump passing lanes, creating easy baskets after the first ten minutes. The Tigers controlled the glass, outrebounding the Golden Eagles 26-14 in the first half and 46-28 for the game.
Martin and Mickey finished the half in double figures with 13 and 12, respectively, and had seven rebounds each.
Chip Armelin led the charge for Southern Miss with 28 points on 6-of-8 shooting from three-point range.
“I thought that we played fine for the most part on offense,” said Southern Miss coach Doc Sadler. “On defense we could have done things differently…But Johnny’s team proved to be better tonight.”
