Maybe being down 14 points at Missouri with just more than two minutes left wasn’t a big enough challenge.

Neither was trailing at Mississippi State by 10 points with 15½ minutes remaining.

Or falling behind Auburn by 16 with 11 minutes left in the first half.

Or staring at a 9-point deficit just past the 17 minutes-to-play mark at Kentucky’s Rupp Arena where opposing teams win about as often as Halley’s Comet is visible to earth.

Nope, all that was nothing compared to Saturday afternoon in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center when No. 13 LSU inflated its degree of difficulty to ridiculous proportions.

With the Tigers basically erasing almost 30 points from its two leading scorers – team heartbeat Tremont Waters didn’t dress out because of illness and dominant freshman Naz Reid was rendered almost useless by a game-long foul funk – LSU still took down its second No. 5 ranked opponent in less than two weeks.

Trailing Tennessee by nine points with just under seven minutes left in regulation, the tenacious Tigers held the Vols to two field goals the rest of the way forcing overtime. It’s where freshman guard Javonte Smart’s two free throws with a sixth of a second left provided LSU with an 82-80 victory.

The way the Tigers (22-5, 12-2 SEC) have sputtered this season the few moments without Waters, a sophomore point guard who creates constant offensive opportunities not to mention his disruptive defense, a win didn’t seem likely when he was finally ruled out of action at LSU’s pregame walkthrough at 7 a.m. just four hours before Saturday's tip-off.

“We’re a much better team when Tremont’s on the floor,” conceded junior guard Skylar Mays, who scored 23 points and played all 45 minutes of the Tigers’ school-record sixth overtime game of the season. “But when he’s not, like today, and playing against a team that probably will go to the Final Four, it shows a lot about the level of talent we have.”

The fact Mays and his teammates had an inkling Waters might be too sick to play – Wade said Waters was under the weather in Wednesday’s home overtime loss to Florida and didn’t tell trainers until the last couple of days when he took an I.V. on Friday – may have mentally prepared the Tigers for their biggest mountain climb of the season.

Tennessee (24-3, 12-2 SEC), with two likely All-SEC first-team forwards Grant Williams and Admiral Schofield as well as variety of experienced players who can score 20 or more points, had won 19 straight games including an 11-0 start in league play. The Vols' streak ended with last Saturday’s 86-69 loss at Kentucky.

So even playing Tennessee if Waters had been healthy was projected as a tough test for the Tigers. Without him, Wade said the plan was to ship the ball inside to the 250-pound Reid, who has averaged 15 points and 6.8 rebounds in SEC play despite collecting four fouls in five of his last seven league games.

Yet, just 38 seconds into Saturday’s battle royale, he was whistled for his first foul when he threw the 6-7, 236-pound Williams to the floor during a rebound skirmish. Almost three minutes later with 16:18 left, he was benched after collecting foul No. 2 on an obvious shove in another board battle.

The absence of Waters forced Tennessee coach Rick Barnes to adjust.

“In some ways, it’s even tougher because you’ve talked about your game plan and what you want to do,” Barnes said. “I’ve also seen situations where teams play better when they lose a guy.”

Reid’s early foul trouble – he finished with just one point (an overtime free throw) and seven rebounds – threw a wrench into Wade’s game plan.

“We had to go to Plan C from there,” Wade explained.

Which was spacing the floor and setting high screens for backcourt duo of Mays and Smart. The twin 6-4, 200-pound hellbent attack dogs never quit driving fearlessly to the basket despite getting continuously leveled.

Mays got slapped so much that if you would have dusted his arms and face for fingerprints, he would have looked like a dribbling crime scene.

In so many areas, it didn’t seem like a fair fight for the Tigers.

Schofield and his automatic mid-range jumper posted 27 points. Williams banged his way to 18 points including the Vols’ last six points in overtime highlighted by spinning drives and left-hand finishes over 6-11 LSU forward Kavell Bigby-Williams and the 6-10 Reid.

Yet in the final 6:44 of regulation, after the Vols extended their lead to 64-55, Smart and Mays combined to outscore Tennessee 16-7 with Mays missing a potential game-winning 3-pointer at end of regulation to leave the game deadlocked at 71-71.

Smart added four more points in overtime, but it was the game-deciding free throws he swished to cap a 29-point performance that demonstrated “anytime there’s been a big game he’s been spades for us,” Wade said.

Even the prospect of shooting the biggest free throws of Smart’s 27-game college career didn’t rattle him.

“Yesterday at practice we shot free throws and I didn’t miss a free throw,” Smart said. “So I just said `Practice makes perfect.' I went up to the free throw line with a lot of confidence.”

Just moments later when the Vols couldn’t beat the game-ending buzzer with a field goal attempt, Smart and Mays embraced as the postgame party started.

After Barnes chased after the officiating crew to voice one last complaint, he found Wade for a handshake before Wade took the public address microphone to thank the sellout crowd of 13,581.

“We found a way, that’s what we do in Louisiana,” said Wade, drawing a huge roar.

That’s certainly what this LSU team does. It always discovers the escape route. It doesn’t matter if the Tigers do something impossible equivalent to walking barefoot through hot coals or swimming a mile underwater without taking a breath.

They just do it over and over and over.

After the first couple of times this season, you could call it "lucky." After another instance or two, it may have been described as "poise."

But after what happened Saturday, it’s simply the D.N.A. that has them four league wins away from winning or sharing an SEC regular season championship.