Baton Rouge, La. — The Indiana State men’s basketball team did a lot of things right against the Louisiana State Tigers in Monday’s Dick’s NIT Season Tipoff opener.
But the one thing the Sycamores couldn’t do doomed them to defeat.
LSU outrebounded the Sycamores 50-28 and had a whopping 26 second-chance points. That was the difference in ISU’s 56-45 loss to the Bayou Bengals.
“Our guys competed, but we just didn’t make enough shots to sustain it and gave up too many offensive rebounds. That is the best way I can describe this game,” ISU coach Kevin McKenna said.
Indeed. LSU won despite star swingman Tasmin Mitchell being held to eight points and with point guard Bo Spencer being limited to 10 points and a 4-of-20 shooting night. The Tigers shot 34.3 percent from the field and came up empty on 15 3-point attempts.
Unfortunately for ISU, many of those misses were converted into second-chance points. Power forward Storm Warren will live in ISU’s nightmares entirely because of his board dominance. The LSU forward had 14 points and 12 rebounds; all six of his field goals came directly off offensive rebounds, and he had eight offensive boards overall.
“We just tried to eliminate Tasmin Mitchell and Bo Spencer from beating us tonight and we did that for the most part. It was the little mistakes we made that killed us. Blocking out was the biggest thing, but I think overall, we played a decent game,” said ISU swingman Dwayne Lathan, who led ISU with 12 points.
Warren’s rebounding dominance was nothing Warren’s teammates didn’t expect.
“That’s what he does, getting rebounds, that’s his gift. Sometimes we miss a shot and we’re like, ‘Storm’s got it.’ That’s what we do,” Mitchell said.
Part of LSU’s rebounding advantage was a result of the way ISU defended Mitchell and Spencer, sometimes jumping two defenders on the pair. However, another part of it was LSU just being too athletic for ISU’s big men.
“They were killing us on the boards, but we had to somehow negate that in other ways. We’re going to come out [next game] and rebound better,” ISU guard Jake Kelly said.
ISU’s inability to rebound was a killer, but LSU (2-0) also defended the Sycamores well. The Tigers jumped defenders out on ISU’s perimeter handoffs, disrupting the flow of ISU’s offense. The Sycamores were sometimes forced to take low-percentage shots in the middle, but also forced a few of their own volition.
“What we tried to do was force them out beyond the [3-point line] and get them out of their Princeton stuff by helping off with our post guy. For the most part, the kids did that,” LSU coach Trent Johnson said. “This is a good basketball team we played. Anytime you hold a team like this to 13 of 43 from the field, we did a good job.”
The Sycamores had just one assist, a total McKenna disputed in the postgame press conference. Lathan was the only Sycamore to get into double-figure scoring. Jake Kelly had eight points as LSU focused its defensive efforts on him. Harry Marshall had seven points.
ISU started well, though that’s a relative point as both teams struggled mightily from the field for the first 10 minutes. The Sycamores led 8-4 with 11:42 to go in the half; the teams had combined to shoot 4 of 21 from the field at that point.
The Sycamores led as late as the 6:22 mark of the first half when LSU’s board dominance and defense finally gave the Tigers a breakthrough.
After Warren made it 14-all on a putback, Lathan drove the lane and had his shot spiked by Dennis Harris (official scorers credited Warren with a steal, though Harris clearly got a block), who quickly got into transition in time to receive an alley-oop dunk feed from Warren to put the Tigers in front for the first time and get a heretofore quiet Pete Maravich Center crowd of 8,113 into it. Rashad Reed turned it over on ISU’s next possession and Spencer got a layup to put LSU up 18-14.
ISU would only close its gap to three the rest of the way, though despite LSU’s rebounding prowess, the Sycamores hung within range most of the way. With LSU up 30-26 early in the second half, two chances to cut the deficit went by the boards for ISU, the last on a controversial charge call on Lathan, who appeared to be close enough to the basket to invoke the new college rule where a charge call isn’t made close to the basket.
Ultimately, however, LSU’s glass hegemony carried the day. A 14-2 run midway through the second half, two of the buckets coming via putbacks, knocked the Sycamores out of the box, though ISU did cut it deficit to six as late as the 3:40 mark. ISU couldn’t work off of it, making one field goal in the final four minutes of the game.
ISU will play Wisconsin-Milwaukee at 5:30 p.m. today. The Panthers lost 69-65 to Western Kentucky in the Monday doubleheader opener. The athletic Panthers have some bulk themselves and will produce many of the same issues on the glass for ISU as LSU did.
That said, McKenna was pleased with some of what he saw against the Tigers.
“I think the most positive thing that I saw was our effort. Our effort was outstanding defensively and their execution defensively was good. We were down six with four minutes to go. You get a couple stops and a couple of shots to go down and you are right there. We gave up a couple of easy baskets and they just pulled away,” McKenna said.
ISU’s remaining Preseason NIT fate — where and who they play next Monday and Tuesday — is contingent on games at all four Preseason NIT regions today.
Indiana State 45
Player min fg 3pt ft r a pf tp
Leitnaker 11 1-1 0-0 2-2 3 0 1 4
Marshall 37 3-10 1-3 0-0 4 1 3 7
Printy 13 1-4 0-1 0-0 2 0 0 2
Richard 27 0-8 0-1 0-0 5 0 1 0
Kelly 32 2-8 0-1 4-5 2 0 3 8
Doluony 18 2-4 0-1 0-0 1 0 2 4
Reed 21 1-5 1-4 3-4 2 0 1 6
Crawford 14 0-0 0-0 2-2 1 0 2 2
Lathan 26 3-3 1-1 5-6 3 0 3 12
Martin 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Totals 13-43 3-12 16-19 *28 1 16 45
Louisiana State 56
Player min fg 3pt ft r a pf tp
Mitchell 39 2-11 0-4 4-4 14 1 3 8
Green 13 1-7 0-0 0-0 3 0 0 2
Warren 25 6-8 0-0 2-2 12 0 4 14
Spencer 40 4-20 0-5 2-4 2 3 2 10
Dotson 17 1-2 0-1 0-0 2 1 3 2
Bass 23 0-2 0-1 2-2 3 2 1 2
Ludwig 10 2-4 0-2 0-0 3 0 0 4
Harris 21 5-9 0-1 0-0 8 0 3 10
Kinsley 12 2-4 0-1 0-0 0 0 0 4
Totals 23-67 0-15 10-12 *50 7 16 56
Halftime score — LSU 24, ISU 19. FG Pct. — ISU .302, LSU .343. 3-pt FG Pct. — ISU .250, LSU .000. FT Pct. — ISU .842, LSU .833. (*) Includes team rebounds — ISU 5, LSU 3. Turnovers — ISU 12 (Leitnaker 3, Lathan 3), LSU 10 (Mitchell 3). Steals — ISU 3 (Marshall, Doluony, Reed), LSU 4 (Mitchell 2). Blocks — ISU 0, LSU 3 (Warren 2). Att. — 8,113.
Next — ISU (1-1) plays Wisconsin-Milwaukee at 5:30 p.m. today. LSU (2-0) plays Western Kentucky at 8 p.m.
College
Tigers take full advantage of Sycamores’ rebounding troubles with 26 second-chance points
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