In a two-hour span, the officials called 55 fouls. One team had three players foul out and called a timeout when it didn’t have one. The other led by 14 points with 2:27 left in the game, but somehow, allowed its lead to shrink to one point roughly two minutes later.
But, in the end, the LSU men’s basketball team connected on six three-pointers in the second half and drained enough of its 55 free throw attempts to squeak out an 89-85 win against Georgia on Tuesday night in the PMAC.
“We knew coming in it would be a hard-fought battle and an exciting game,” said LSU coach Johnny Jones. “Didn’t realize we would make it that exciting toward the end.”
In a game where the Tigers (13-7, 6-2 Southeastern Conference) attempted more free throws than field goals, LSU appeared to be cruising to a comfortable win despite a slow, foul-plagued second half.
Leading by double-digits with under a minute to go, the Tigers missed four free throws and got sloppy on the defensive end as Georgia junior guard J.J. Frazier made it a one-point game with 23 seconds left. However, LSU connected on five of its last six free throw attempts, and Georgia freshman forward E’Torrion Wilridge missed a potential game-tying jumper with four seconds left.
“It was crazy,” said junior guard Tim Quarterman, who made his first start since the Florida game on Jan. 9. “I’ve never shot that many free throws in my life in a game.”
Much like against Alabama on Saturday, LSU sophomore forward Craig Victor II found himself in second-half foul trouble, picking up his third infraction with 16:49 left in the contest. On Victor’s third foul, Bulldog sophomore forward Yante Maten completed a three-point play, knotting the score at 39 apiece.
But from there, LSU regained control. With Jones going to another four-guard lineup without Victor, Quarterman and freshman guard Antonio Blakeney hit back-to-back treys to break the tie. Blakeney’s dunk at the 13:51 mark capped an 8-0 run and gave the Tigers a 47-39 lead.
Victor then picked up his fourth foul with 13:16 left, forcing Jones to stay with the smaller lineup, but both teams struggled to avoid whistles at their expense. Maten and Georgia freshman forward Mike Edwards had both fouled out by the 9:29 mark of the second half, and the Tigers had taken 34 foul shots by the third media timeout.
“It was tough,” said LSU freshman forward Ben Simmons, who led the Tigers with 22 points and 14 rebounds. “It was a long game, and I felt like it went on for a while just because of the stoppage. It’s adversity, and we have to learn how to play through it.”
With the foul fest slowing down the game, the Bulldogs found themselves only behind by two points with 8:35 remaining, but that would be as close they got it until late in the game, especially because of the sharpshooting of sophomore guard Jalyn Patterson.
After notching just two free throws in the first half, Patterson knocked down three triples within a three-minute span, the last of which pushed LSU’s lead to 11 points. The Tigers extended the lead to 14 points, their largest lead of the game, but the Bulldogs outscored LSU, 19-9, over the final two minutes and 27 seconds to shrink the margin of the Tigers’ victory.
“Teams have runs,” Jones said. “We made ours. The team that they are, they weren’t going to quit. They weren’t going to stop playing. They continued to stay in the game and make plays right there through the very end … We played with too much comfort. We were too loose with the basketball. We are glad that we had an opportunity to correct those things with a victory instead of trying to get them corrected after a setback.”