LSU fights for another victory

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Mar 3, 2008

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For a while Sunday, the LSU men’s basketball team must’ve felt a sickening wave of déjà vu.

Because when the Tigers took the court against Georgia at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, the first 10 1/2 minutes sure seemed all too familiar.

Missed shots — a lot of them. Shoddy defense that left shooters with plenty of breathing room and allowed a team without much perimeter confidence to pump in five 3-pointers. The net result was a double-digit deficit that loomed large because LSU was struggling to do anything right.

But instead of accepting their fate, the Tigers instead redirected momentum and found a way to reach another milestone in their late-season growth spurt.

LSU wiped out a 16-point deficit with a strong finish in the first half and a grind-it-out performance over the final 20 minutes to rally past the Bulldogs 71-64.

Marcus Thornton torched the Bulldogs for 36 points, Anthony Randolph added 19 and Chris Johnson continued his surge as a dominant defender with 15 rebounds and seven blocked shots as the Tigers (12-16, 5-9 SEC) won their third consecutive game for the first time this season.

This one wasn’t easy, it wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t without a tinge of controversy.

Following a loose-ball scrum with LSU guard Alex Farrer, Georgia point guard Sundiata Gaines was called for a flagrant technical foul and was ejected with 13:20 left in the game, impacting both teams and changing the Bulldogs game plan for all the wrong reasons.

As unattractive as the victory might have been, the bottom line was all that mattered to the Tigers.

“People have done it to us, so we decided why can’t we do it?” Farrer said, referring to the numerous double-figure leads the Tigers have faced this season. The 16-point hole was the biggest the Tigers have completely erased this year. “That kind of showed us that it’s possible. It’s difficult, but if you do the things you’ve been working on and preparing for it will work itself out in the end. It’s all about growing up, and that’s what we’ve been doing the last few weeks.”

Added LSU point guard Garrett Temple, “We’ve been there before, but we came back this. Even though we were down, we didn’t get nervous and the coaches didn’t get nervous. They did a good job of telling us to execute.”

Particularly on defense.

The Bulldogs (12-15, 3-11) jolted the Tigers when they steamrolled to 24-8 and then 29-13 leads because they were red-hot from the floor.