It is fair to say things looked bleak for the LSU basketball team 11 games into the Southeastern Conference schedule.
The Tigers were 3-8 in conference and at one point, lost five consecutive SEC games, including a defeat to lowly Arkansas.
After such a promising start to the season with wins over No. 1 Arizona and No. 7 Mississippi State, both players and coaches were baffled by the ineptitude and poor shooting of the team.
Before the slide started with a loss to Ole Miss on Jan. 18 in the PMAC, LSU shot 51.9 percent from the field and 37.9 percent from behind the 3-point line.
During the midseason collapse when LSU went 2-7, the Tigers percentages plummeted to 41.5 percent shooting from the field and 29.9 percent from the 3-point line, obviously not good enough for a predominantly perimeter oriented team.
LSU head coach John Brady stressed the offense was being executed fine, but for some reason the shots were just not falling. He and the Tigers hoped they soon would.
What they did not realize was not only would the shots start falling, but they would start falling in record numbers.
LSU traveled to Kentucky to face No. 3 Kentucky on Feb. 15 in a large challenge.
The Tigers fell, 68-57, but put forth a respectable effort that turned some heads, including Brady’s.
“I don’t like to lose,” Brady said after the game. “When we are losing, I do not sleep well. I take it personally. It bothers me. But I liked our team today. I was proud of them. Based on what other teams have done in here in the past, our team definitely showed up.”
To say LSU showed up in its next seven games would be an understatement. They dominated.
First Arkansas came to the PMAC, and the Tigers were foaming at the mouth for a little revenge. They got a lot.
LSU led by as many as 37 points during the game and won 75-56.
Even though the amazing shooting display of the future was still yet to come, the dominance displayed by LSU, including defensively, was here to stay.
“I thought defensively, it was as good a first half as we have seen in a while,” Brady said of the Tigers performance, when they held the Razorbacks to 18.8 percent shooting in the first half. “I think from that standpoint, the way we guarded them and the way we defended them led to us having some good offense off our defense.”
Then the shooting fireworks went off.
Auburn, who was tied for first in the conference and beat LSU, 56-54, on a shot toward the end of the game Feb. 8, ran into a buzzsaw.
LSU went on a 3-point binge, nailing a then school record 16 3-pointers on 25 attempts, and pounded the orange-and-blue Tigers, 94-63, in the PMAC.
“It came to a point that when we let the ball go, I knew it was going in,” said LSU freshman Darrel Mitchell, who hit all five of his 3-point attempts.
Of the 32 field goals made by LSU, 26 of them were the result of an assist, another continuing theme in LSU’s success.
“I do not know if I have ever seen a team play more unselfish with a belief system in one another in sharing the ball than I saw tonight,” Brady said of the assist parade. “I do not know if I have ever felt as good about a team showing unselfishness and sharing the ball as that team did tonight.”
He did not know what would happen the next game when LSU traveled to Knoxville, Tenn., to face Tennessee.
LSU outdid itself, breaking the school record for 3-pointers once again knocking down 17-of-27 3-point attempts. Once again LSU’s unselfishness contributed to the blowout, as 27 assists were dished out for 30 field goals.
In the understatement of the year, Tennessee head coach Buzz Peterson said, “They really knocked down the 3-pointers.”
With a 6-8 record in the SEC, LSU was alive and kicking in its attempt to receive an NCAA Tournament bid with Ole Miss and Alabama remaining on its schedule.
The Tigers pushed aside the Rebels, this time using suffocating defense and forcing Ole Miss to shoot 38.9 percent in LSU’s 77-64 victory on the road.
The win setup a matchup with Alabama in the PMAC on March 8 with a possible NCAA Tourney bid on the line. LSU responded to the task.
Defense was the winning formula again, as ‘Bama turned the ball over 15 times and shot 38.3 percent from the field in LSU’s 66-62 win.
Feeling like they had an NCAA Tournament bid locked up, the Tigers went to New Orleans for the SEC Tournament relaxed and ready to have fun.
They polished off Arkansas, 85-56, in the first round of the tourney and were set to meet seventh-ranked Florida in the second round.
Behind magical performances by senior forward Ronald Dupree and junior forward Jaime Lloreda, LSU defeated a Top Ten team for the third time of the season, holding on to defeat the Gators, 65-61.
Dupree went 11-15 from the field for 24 points, and Lloreda scored 21 points and pulled down 15 boards to lead the Tigers.
That is where the run would stop.
In its next two games, LSU would fall victim to what had fueled its run at the end of the season: Great 3-point shooting and stifling defense.
Mississippi State and Purdue hit 10 and nine 3-pointers, respectively and held Dupree to single digits to end the Tigers’ season.
Even with the abrupt end to the season, the Tigers went on a seven-game stretch of the likes that had not been seen in Baton Rouge since the Sweet 16 team of 2000.