Baton Rouge, La. — For the second-straight game, the LSU Tigers were without Tremont Waters because of an undisclosed illness, but they still found a way to win Tuesday night– and did it in convincing fashion. They led Texas A&M by as many as 21 points, and went-on to win it 66-55. LSU attacked the basket early and often, starting with a barrage of dunks and ended-up finishing with 40 points in the paint.
“We wanted to get that ball in the paint,” said LSU Head Basketball Coach Will Wade. “Unfortunately [Josh] Nebo was just blocking them everywhere but you’ve got to keep challenging them in there. You’ve got to keep going to the rim, keep trying to draw fouls. I thought our guys executed. The last two games we’ve really executed our game plan and gotten our scouting report into the game.”
“That’s something we’ve done last game so we kind of wanted to piggy back and bring that to this game,” said Naz Reid, who finished with a team-high 18 points, 11 rebounds. “Obviously we have a phenomenal group. We’ve got a couple great bigs and we just pounded the ball inside and we were all able to convert.”
“We kept shooting so they were getting the offensive rebounds and going back up,” said Javonte Smart, who had 17 points and 7 rebounds in the win. “Before the game, Coach said feed the bigs in the post and let them work out and beat them in the paint and we did.”
LSU (23-5, 13-2 SEC) now has just 3 games left in the regular season, starting with their next contest Saturday at Alabama.
