LSU men pound Ole Miss
Hamilton, Warren lead Tigers to victory in SEC opener
The LSU men’s basketball team entered its Southeastern Conference opener Saturday afternoon missing two of its top big men.
Standout performances by Justin Hamilton and Storm Warren made sure the Tigers didn’t miss a beat, combining for 38 points and 27 rebounds in an 81-55 rout of Ole Miss before a paid crowd of 7,176 at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The margin of victory was the largest by LSU in an SEC opener since a 92-66 romp over Florida in 1981.
“Storm and Justin were really good,” LSU coach Trent Johnson said. “They needed to be.”
LSU (11-4) matched its win total from last year – and the year before – days after freshman forward Johnny O’Bryant III suffered a broken bone in his left hand while attempting to grab a rebound during practice. The Tigers also were without senior forward Malcolm White, who missed Saturday’s game to attend his grandmother’s funeral.
Ole Miss (10-5) had a harder time dealing with its own personnel issues.
The Rebels knew they would take the court without leading scorer Dundrecous Nelson, who along with reserve guard Jamal Jones was dismissed from the team Thursday for violating team rules. They hoped to welcome back leading rebounder Murphy Holloway, who missed the past two games with a high ankle sprain.
But after going through warmups with his teammates, Holloway watched Saturday’s game from the bench in street clothes.
“He wasn’t ready. We tested him last night and wanted him to come out and go through warmups and see how he felt,” Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy said. “We were really going on his call. He said he wasn’t ready, so we didn’t dress him.”
Hamilton and Warren led an inside-out attack that pounced on their short-handed foe’s post defense.
Hamilton, a 7-foot junior, had career highs in points with 23 and rebounds with 16. Warren, a 6-7 senior, had 15 points and 11 rebounds for his first double-double of the season.
Making his first start since Thanksgiving, Warren scored six of LSU’s first nine points.
“Being short-handed, we knew we had to play smart, stay under control and help each other out,” Warren said
Bouncing back from a tough loss to Virginia in its final nonconference game, LSU won for the 10th time in 11 games. All of the wins during that stretch have come while holding the opponent below 60 points.
The Tigers have generally kept the score down and won late, but this one looked like a mismatch from the opening tip.
LSU led 14-3 four and a half minutes in. It was 44-24 at the half.
“It’s hard to be perfect,” Warren said, “but we try to be as perfect as possible.”
While the big guys had their fun in the post, freshman point guard Anthony Hickey (12 points, seven assists, no turnovers) spearheaded an efficient offense that shot 41.9 percent from the field, registered 16 assists and had only nine giveaways.
Every player in uniform scored.
That includes walk-on center Andrew Del Piero, who scored his first career points in a rout of Grambling last month. Against Ole Miss, he hit one of two free throws with 1:06 remaining.
Ole Miss, which shot only 34.5 percent from the field, had no scorers in double figures.
“We just knew we needed to come out in the second half with the same intensity we showed in the first,” Hamilton said. “We had to make sure they didn’t make any kind of comeback at all.”
LSU returns to action Wednesday at Alabama, two days after the Tigers and Tide play for the BCS National Championship in football.
O’Bryant will likely miss a significant portion of SEC play with the hand injury. Johnson wasn’t sure how soon White will return.
“It’s tough not having those guys, but we got through this one,” Johnson said. “We’ll see what happens in the next one.”