Injury idles Spencer

• By GARY LANEY
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Feb 13, 2009 - Page: 1C - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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For the first 24 games this season, LSU has used the same starting lineup.

That will change when Ole Miss comes to town Saturday.

Tigers coach Trent Johnson said Thursday that point guard Bo Spencer will miss the game because of a sprained ankle he suffered in Wednesday’s 97-94 double-overtime win at Mississippi State.

“He’s not going to play Saturday,” Johnson said. “I don’t want to put him in that situation. There’s no way.”

Johnson said Spencer has a sprain to his left ankle and his status is “day-to-day.” Without Spencer, Johnson will turn to Garrett Temple, last season’s starting point guard for the Tigers, as the point guard. Senior Terry Martin, coming off an 11-point, five-rebound game against MSU, will come off the bench to take Temple’s spot on the wing. Freshman Chris Bass, who has been Spencer’s primary backup, will continue to come off the bench.

“I’m going to keep Chris (Bass) in the situation (coming off the bench) because one thing about Ole Miss is the freshman, (Terrico) White, my goodness, is he talented,” Trent Johnson said. “But their perimeter (players) are big, 6-(foot)-5, 6-6. So the matchup is natural for us in that regard. Then they come with Will Bogan off the bench and that will be a pretty good matchup with Chris Bass.”

In the first 24 games this season, the lineup has been Spencer at point guard, Temple and Thornton on the wings and Tasmin Mitchell and Chris Johnson at the forward spots.

With Martin in the lineup, LSU will have two 6-6 guards in Temple and Martin while Marcus Thornton, at 6-4, will be the shortest LSU starter Saturday. With the 6-5 White at point guard, Ole Miss starts three wings 6-5 or taller.

LSU forward Tasmin Mitchell, coming off a 41-point performance in Wednesday’s win that gave LSU a two-game lead in the SEC race, said his team will adjust.

“We can’t replace Bo Spencer with his shooting and his being a point guard and a leader on the floor,” Mitchell said. “But we aren’t going to miss a step. We have guys who are going to step in and are going to help, Chris Bass, or moving Garrett to the one.”

Spencer was breaking out of a slump when he turned his ankle and left the game with 12:22 left in the second half Wednesday. Spencer came back, played a couple of minutes and hit a 3-pointer before his coach took him out of the game for the rest of the night.

“He played with some toughness,” Johnson said of Spencer, who scored 15 points and had three assists. Spencer, who is third on the Tigers team in scoring at 11.6 points per game and second in assists with 64 — Temple leads the team with 96 — had been in a slump before the MSU game. Before the MSU game, he had scored just two points, on 1-for-13 shooting, in LSU’s previous two games.

Johnson also had kind words for Martin, the player who will move into the starting lineup. Martin was 4-for-7 from the floor and had just one turnover in 31 minutes off the bench against MSU.