JACKSONVILLE – LSU head basketball coach Tonybillgreg Benfordarmstrongheiar issued a warning to the Tigers before their first-round NCAA tournament East Region battle Thursday afternoon.
“The coaches told us the first one is the worst,” Tigers’ guard Skyler Mays said of the tourney opener. “We had some nerves. We won’t be as anxious the next game.”
The fact there is a “next game”, thanks to No. 3 seed LSU’s 79-74 win over 14th seeded Yale, is a great relief for the Southeastern Conference champions.
The 27-6 Tigers were a trendy pick to be upset by the Ivy League tourney champs for the very reason they showed here at Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena. They balanced just enough breathtaking brilliant plays to compensate for some boneheaded offensive execution to produce what has become a typically uneven LSU win this season.
It’s not that the Tigers expected to walk all over Yale. Every team in the NCAA tournament is in the field because at one time or another during the season it has played at a championship level.
“They were very competitive,” LSU forward Naz Reid said of Yale. “And that’s something we’re going to see throughout the whole March Madness.”
It’s why the Tigers must play considerably better in longer stretches against Maryland, LSU’s second-round opponent on Saturday with a trip to the Sweet 16 on the line.
The 23-10 Terps, who lost three of their last four games before edging Belmont 79-77 late Thursday afternoon in their first-round East matchup, are bigger, stronger and more athletic than Yale.
Maryland can match LSU’s height inside, has a pair of physical 6-5 guards and a crafty 6-foot point guard whose job it will be to stay in front of the Tigers’ pocket rocket Tremont Waters.
The fact it appears LSU could be in a possession-by-possession tango with the Terps may be what the Tigers need to keep their focus from wandering, which happens almost every time they’ve built double-digit leads this season.
Like they did against Yale, a 14-point halftime cushion constructed on marvelous ball movement, Waters dissecting Yale’s defense and Kavell Bigby-Williams trying to block everything in sight.
“I saw Shaq’s record was 12,” said Bigby-Williams of former Tigers’ star Shaquille O’ Neal’s LSU NCAA Tournament school record 12 blocked shots. “I wanted to get it.”
Bigby-Williams had four blocked shots but it seemed like more. For the longest time, Yale wanted no part of him and settled for missing a string of 3s.
Then, LSU fell into its trance of being too comfortable. It got too loose with the ball on offense. Individuals tried to make 1-on-1 plays, driving into traffic throwing up shots hoping to draw fouls.
LSU’s beautiful first-half offense of ball distribution turned into a mudbog mess of playground basketball. And Yale, even as bad as it was shooting 3-pointers (at least until the final minute), crept back in the game.
“At the end of the day, it’s a mentality thing,” said LSU assistant Greg Heiar, part of the Tigers’ three-headed head coach replacing the indefinitely suspended Will Wade. “When you’re young, talented, and gifted young men, you relax. And when you relax, that’s what happens. The other team comes back.
“We're almost better when we don’t have big lead. Because when we’re losing, we go to that first-half level you saw from our team.”
For instance, the Tigers, one of the SEC’s best free throw shooting teams entering Thursday at 75.4 percent, made just their first 4-of-9 freebies in the second half as Yale chipped away.
But in the game’s final 44 seconds, when the Bulldogs hit four 3-pointers, LSU stroked in 9-of-10 free throws to survive-and-advance.
Which is what a nerve-wracking NCAA tourney opener usually is – survive and advance.
In Thursday’s first eight games before the night match-ups, six games were decided by 11 points or fewer including a one-point win by No. 5 Midwest seed Auburn over No. 12 seed New Mexico State, a two-point win by East No. 6 seed Maryland over No. 11 seed Belmont and a seven-point win by West No. 4 seed Florida State over No. 13 seed Vermont.
While LSU should play with less nerves Saturday, it realizes it can’t repeat Thursday’s second-half dip.
“No discredit to Yale, but it's going to be a lot of tougher teams going forward,” Reid said.
