It finally happened. The LSU Tigers won their first game since January 4 in beating Tennessee 92-82 in Baton Rouge.
After losing 15 straight games, the Tigers were able to build on the close loss at Georgia to destroy any slight chance that the Vols had of staying on the NCAA tournament bubble.
The most surprising part of it all was that LSU did it without a lot of production from leading scorer Antonio Blakeney (17.9 points per game). Blakeney only scored six points on the night, but it was sophomore Brandon Sampson (24 points) and junior Jalen Patterson (22 points) that fueled the Tigers to victory.
Duop Reath and Aaron Epps also added 10 a piece for LSU.
As for Tennessee, the Vols just couldn’t find enough defense to slow down the home team late in the game.
Grant Williams and Shembari Phillips each finished with 16 in a losing effort.
Blake’s Analysis:
My SEC basketball predictions have been ridiculed by the masses, but you will ridicule no more.
I have no idea why I thought this would happen. But I did.
This game could go one of two ways.
Way No. 1: LSU has a major letdown after coming so close in Athens, and Tennessee runs away with the victory.
Way No. 2: LSU uses the momentum from Athens to finally put two halves together on its way to snapping the 15-game losing streak.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m gonna go with the latter. It just gets boring picking everyone to beat the Tigers by 25+.
When you’re good, you’re good.
In all seriousness, it felt like LSU momentarily found something in that loss at Georgia. It felt like a game that the Tigers deserved to win, and luckily for them, they were able to look beyond yet another tough defeat and finally snap the losing streak.
This shouldn’t change much in terms of Johnny Jones being out once the season is over, but at least LSU didn’t throw in the towel here.
And actually, it looks like Jones and the Tigers may have bigger plans than just this one victory:
Jones notes UGA won the SEC tourney in 2008 to make NCAA tourney.
"We still have hope."#LSU
— Cody Worsham (@CodyWorsham) February 28, 2017
That would be something else.