LSU stuns Golden Eagles

Tigers rally to upset 10th-ranked Marquette

LSU basketball threw a party Monday night worthy of years gone by.

Fans at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center couldn’t sit as they watched their Tigers, coming off back-to-back 20-loss seasons, go toe-to-toe with the highest-ranked non-conference opponent to visit campus in five years.

By the end, the rocking crowd of 8,630 may have caught an early case of March Madness.

Using an all-around effort that showcased the team’s great depth, LSU charged back from an early 13-point deficit to hand previously unbeaten Marquette a 67-59 loss.

“I thought our fans were great and got really loud,” LSU coach Trent Johnson said. ‘There were some times when we needed every inch of their help.”

LSU (8-3) won its fifth straight game, improving to 7-1 in its past eight outings.

It was the first victory by the Tigers over a ranked team since the 2009 NCAA tournament, and their first win against a ranked opponent in the regular season since the Glen Davis era.

Ralston Turner bounced back after shooting 2-for-17 from the field against UC-Irvine in LSU’s last game and led the Tigers with 22 points. He went 4-for-5 from 3-point range.

Justin Hamilton scored 13 points, including seven from the free-throw line in the final minute. Storm Warren came off the bench to spark the Tigers, scoring all 10 of his points in the first half.

Nine players saw at least 10 minutes of action.

Freshman point guard Anthony Hickey was a blur of momentum-shifting activity, filling the stat sheet with eight points, six assists, four steals and two blocked shots.

Senior reserves Chris Bass and Malcolm White were among the players who energized the Tigers after they fell behind 13-0 in the first four minutes.

“At the beginning of the game, coach told us to just have fun,” Hickey said. “We started off a little slow, but we all competed.”

Marquette’s pair of senior stars, Jae Crowder and Darius Johnson-Odom, combined to score 38 points.

But the Tigers, who have kept seven of their past eight opponents below 60 points, limited the Golden Eagles (10-1) to their lowest shooting percentage of the season at 36.2 percent from the field. The 59 points for Marquette, which averaged 84 through 10 games, matched a season low.

“I thought defensively, we were as good as we’ve been all year,” Johnson said.

The Eagles, who moved up one spot earlier Monday when the latest national polls were released, showed early why they had created such a buzz this year after reaching the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament last season.

They raced to the 13-0 lead, keeping the LSU crowd briefly quiet, behind eight points from Crowder and five from Johnson-Odom.

But after making five of their first seven attempts from the field, the Eagles shot only 14.3 percent the rest of the half. Meanwhile, LSU went 10-for-16 (62.5 percent) in the final 16:06 to take a 26-23 lead into intermission.

“Whether it’s early or whether it’s late, they are going to make a run,” Johnson said he told his team. “Your ability to keep your poise and play through some adversity is (going to be) huge.”

The game went back and forth in the second half, the lead changing hands 12 times in the first 18 minutes. The crowd seemed to hang on every possession.

Turner hit a 3-pointer with 2:23 to play — his third of the half — to give LSU the lead for good.

The Tigers led by as much as nine in the final minute thanks in part to Hamilton’s free-throw shooting. The Eagles got as close as 63-59 with 14 seconds to go, but four more Hamilton free throws put it away.

“The fans, they were like, wow,” Hickey said. “It was like a football game.”

There will be plenty of time for fans to think about football as Les Miles & Co. prepare to face Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game. But they may want to keep an eye on Johnson’s basketball team as well.

A rebuilding project that covered two seasons now has the Tigers looking like the kind of team that could potentially challenge for the postseason.

Not that their coach is ready to speak of such things.

“I don’t want to take away from the guys’ excitement and enjoyment, but it’s one win,” Johnson said.

“Like I told them going into the game, regardless of what happens, there is still a lot of basketball that needs to be played.”