Loss showed how far LSU has yet to go
Anthony Hickey’s pass flew on an upward arc toward the rim, and Storm Warren rose to meet it.
He soared above Kentucky’s tall blue spruces and slammed the ball home, a text book alley-oop pass complete with a couple of seconds of legal rim-clutching hang time for good measure.
In one athletic manuver, Warren shook loose the ghosts of the Deaf Dome who have spent the last couple of seasons slumbering somewhere up in the Maravich Center’s false ceiling, the place where Dale Brown used to drop a Mike the Tiger mascot on a rope on Kentucky to shatter the Wildcats’ calm.
For one, brief ear-splitting moment, Deaf Dome was deafening again. LSU trailed only by one, 25-24, with three minutes left in the first half, and suddenly anything was possible. That meant anything, up to and including LSU’s epic upset of another No. 1-ranked Kentucky team back in 1978.
Then, reality re-established itself in the persona of Terrence Jones and Anthony Davis.
Jones poured in 27 points and nine rebounds. Davis survived a takedown by LSU’s Malcolm White — he was ejected for a new-fangled Flagrant 2 foul early in the second half — as the Tigers’ frustration was mounting.
In the end, Warren’s grandstand play evaporated in the face of a Kentucky team that looked bigger and more talented than the Tigers at virtually every position.
The 74-50 smackdown reminded you of then No. 1 LSU’s 35-7 victory over Kentucky across the street in Tiger Stadium in October. That game illustrated the wide gulf between LSU and Kentucky in football.
This game illustrated the same in basketball.
“They beat us every which way but loose,” said LSU coach Trent Johnson. “Let’s call it what it is.”
There was a day — a day you easily remembered seeing UK great Kyle Macy calling the game from courtside and Brown sitting in the stands behind the scorer’s table — when LSU was Kentucky’s equal and biggest rival. There were even some days when LSU was ahead and Kentucky was scuffling.
Things seem to eventually find their own level in the Southeastern Conference when it comes to its two most historically dominant football and basketball powers. Alabama is again the BCS national champion. And the No. 1 Wildcats are looking every bit the part.
For Tigers fans, the loss was the cherry on top of a sour-tasting month of LSU sports. From the BCS bleauxout loss to Bama to some recruiting disappointments to games like this one (the latest loss in a 2-6 month for LSU basketball), they aren’t going to give January 2012 its own display in LSU’s Andonie Museum.
February could be better. The football team could pull a signing day surprise or two and basketball stands a chance of finishing strong with six or seven wins to put itself in position for a postseason tournament berth. Baseball starts in February, too.
For that reason alone, February couldn’t possibly be more disappointing.