Any hope that Wednesday night’s win over Vanderbilt was going to spark a strong close to the season for the Tigers was dashed on Saturday night.
Facing a previously 10-18 Ole Miss team that had fired head coach Kermit Davis the day prior, LSU was embarrassed on the road in an 82-69 loss in Oxford.
The Tigers (13-16, 2-14 SEC) had one of their stronger starts to the season. The opening minutes were competitive, but LSU controlled for much of the first half and led by as much as seven. However, the Rebels (11-18, 3-13 SEC) stormed back and ended the frame on a 13-5 run that allowed them to take a nine-point lead to the locker room.
“Number one, credit to Ole Miss. They had had a lot go on here in the last 48 hours and I thought they came out really inspired and played together with great energy,” coach [autotag]Matt McMahon[/autotag] said in a release. “They just really manhandled us on the perimeter. Bumped us off every cut, really physical. Then, as you saw there, especially in the second half, unable to guard them. Just got beat time and time again off the dribble.
“In the first half, you get off to the great start, 15-8, obviously they were trying to double KJ (Williams), they were trying to take him away in the post. We got some good looks on those doubles, we were unable to knock them down and then we also took a couple of just horrific shots off the dribble that really hurt us in that stretch. Then to close it out there, every time we got it down to six or seven, we just couldn’t get a stop. They scored on almost every possession in the second half.”
[autotag]KJ Williams[/autotag] had another big game on offense, leading the team with 29 points while [autotag]Adam Miller[/autotag] had 15. But while the Tigers were good on offense in the second half, Ole Miss was even better and shot north of 60%. LSU had 13 turnovers, seven of which came in the second half, and that resulted in 16 total points going the other way.
LSU scored the first five points of the half and cut the lead to four, but it never got that close again.
“Really unfortunate, I thought we made some progress there,” McMahon said. “We had some untimely turnover and those 13 turnovers, the turnover battle pretty similar, but they (Ole Miss) convert theirs into 16 points. We only turned our forced turnovers into four. That ended up being a big difference in the game as well.”
With the loss, LSU is back in sole possession of last place in the SEC. With remaining regular-season games at home against a good Missouri team and on the road against a Florida team it lost to in Baton Rouge earlier this season, the Tigers will likely be the bottom-seeded team in the SEC Tournament, barring something surprising.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1390 tag=1644798]
Contact/Follow us @LSUTigersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Louisiana State news, notes, and opinions.
Follow Tyler to continue the conversation on Twitter: @TylerNettuno
[mm-video type=video id=01gr2wm3bjz1tzmp08th playlist_id=01eqbz5s7cf4w69e0n player_id=01f5k5y2jb3twsvdg4 image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gr2wm3bjz1tzmp08th/01gr2wm3bjz1tzmp08th-94ecac2c303bf0527e447a0c1ca9e9f6.jpg]