The tide turned quickly for two Gulf Coast basketball teams Saturday.
LSU, fresh off an 87-61 thrashing at Arkansas, chalked up its first home win in Southeastern Conference play with a 69-49 win against Ole Miss (18-8, 4-8) on Saturday.
“Questions, please,” said LSU interim coach Butch Pierre with a large smile after the game, skipping any opening statement.
Most of the questions for LSU (10-16, 3-9) leading up to the Tigers’ victory in the PMAC focused on junior guard Marcus Thornton’s injured hip.
After playing only four minutes against Arkansas and missing three days of practice this past week, the Tigers’ leading scorer answered any questions about his health as quickly as possible.
The Baton Rouge native came out of the gates on fire, scoring the Tigers’ first 10 points to put the team ahead 10-4.
“That was a big lift when he came out and made those baskets,” Pierre said. “Sometimes he can do that.”
Thornton scored only seven points the rest of the game en route to a game-high 17 points, but the Tigers still cruised to a 20-point win behind a team effort.
Besides Thornton’s recovery, much of the postgame talk for LSU centered on the Tigers’ defense.
LSU stifled the No. 3 scoring offense in the SEC, holding the Runnin’ Rebels to 27 percent shooting from the field.
LSU particularly frustrated the Rebels’ leading scorer, freshman guard Chris Warren.
LSU junior guard Garrett Temple defended Warren for most of the game and held the speedy ball handler to eight points on 3-of-16 shooting.
The Tigers’ big men also played well. Junior center Chris Johnson and freshman forward Anthony Randolph both grabbed double-doubles in points and rebounds.
LSU had 12 blocks and outrebounded the Rebels, 51-46 as a team.
“Chris started playing with a little confidence,” Pierre said. “He went way above the rim and got some rebounds in traffic, got some offensive rebounds, and he finished some balls around the goal.”
For a five-minute stretch in the first half, Johnson had his hands on everything, grabbing seven rebounds and challenging every Rebel shot attempt.
In one sequence 11 minutes into the game, Johnson blocked an Ole Miss shot attempt, altered a second attempt and gathered the rebound to start a Tiger fast break.
Moments later Johnson rebounded a miss by sophomore guard Alex Farrer and scored to put LSU up 26-10.
Johnson led all players with five blocks and a career-high 15 rebounds.
“I didn’t even realize I had 15 [points],” Johnson said. “I just thought I had like eight, but that’s what I want to keep doing for the team. Obviously it helped, and we won.”
Despite trailing by as many as 17 points in the first half, Ole Miss closed the gap to six points early in the second half on a Warren 3-pointer.
“We knew they would go on a run because good teams go on runs,” Thornton said. “But coach just said, ‘If they throw a punch, punch ’em back.'”
The Tigers punched back with 14-4 run to extend the lead to 51-35 with 10 minutes remaining prior to Temple’s fourth foul sent him to the bench.
But LSU did not miss a beat with freshman point guard Bo Spencer playing the rest of the game.
“Bo did a great job in second half,” Temple said. “Bo’s been playing great in practice. We joke and say Bo’s the best practice player on this team.”
With just more than two minutes remaining, practice made perfect as Spencer stole the ball and cruised to a layup that gave the Tigers their largest lead at 67-40.
Every healthy LSU player played in the game.
Much to the delight of Tiger fans, walk-on sophomore guard and fan-favorite Greg Terrebone saw his first playing time since Dec. 15 and doubled his season scoring total with two late free throws.
—-contact Jerit Roser at [email protected]