BATON ROUGE – It was the Brandon Bass and Darrell Mitchell show Saturday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, as the LSU Tigers defeated Mississippi State 69-62.
Bass and Mitchell combined scored two-thirds of the Bengals’ total points, with Bass contributing 26 and Mitchell 20.
This was the highest point total for either player in SEC play this year. Bass also chipped in with 11 rebounds, five blocks and two steals. Mitchell had another season-high with seven assists.
“One bad match-up you have all night long. Shane Power is guarding Mitchell. There’s a big quickness difference right there,” MSU coach Rick Stansbury said.
“Mitchell was able to get in that lane. He’s the one that really hurt us. Bass is going to get his points, but the dribble penetration really hurt us.”
Bass was hot early and often, scoring six points in the first nine minutes of play. The Bulldogs had no answer for Bass but did hold standout freshman forward Glen “Big Baby” Davis to a mere three points for the game. Davis had averaged 17.8 points per game prior to the contest.
“We did a good job on (Davis) today,” Stansbury said. “Those two guys (Bass and Davis) are one of the best one-two combinations in the league. We stopped one of them, but couldn’t contain the other one.”
MSU also stifled sophomore guard Tack Minor, holding him to only two points for the game. Minor had been averaging 11.4.
As a whole the Bulldogs held LSU to 44.6 percent shooting. However, they couldn’t generate enough offense of their own to get the win.
One of the big reasons for that was the containment of Lawrence Roberts by the Tigers.
The star forward finished the game with another double-double, scoring 15 points and grabbing 12 rebounds.
However, nine of his points came from free throws while another made basket was a transition dunk off a Gary Ervin miss. Roberts was persistently double-teamed and struggled to create shots or find open teammates.
“They doubled me early and often,” Roberts said. “They challenged us to swing the ball, make shots or drive the ball.”
The Dogs did make their shots, going 45.5 percent from the floor. However, making threes was something that the Bulldogs couldn’t do. Mississippi State went 2-10 from beyond the three-point arc as LSU went 7-19.
“The difference in the basketball game is that they made some three-pointers and we didn’t make many; we were two for 10,” Stansbury said. “They have seven we have two; that’s a 15-point difference just from the three-point line.”
Another key was the continued struggling of Gary Ervin without Winsome Frazier. Ervin had totaled 11 assists and 17 turnovers since Frazier went down and the problem continued as Ervin only had two assists with three turnovers.
The second half showed promise for the Dawgs with Ervin scoring four consecutive points on lay-ups to give MSU a one point lead. But LSU would not falter, going on a 10-0 run that was led by Bass and Mitchell.
However, the Bulldogs showed some toughness making a 9-0 run and pulling within three.
The Bulldogs charge was lead by the excellent play of freshman Walter Sharpe. Sharpe played 16 second half minutes due to his 10 second-half points. Stansbury was pleased with Sharpe’s performance.
“He played pretty well, I’ve been saying all along that Walter Sharpe is a guy that can help us,” Stansbury said. “No one else has seen it because he hadn’t taken care of details off the court. I think everybody got just a glimpse of what his abilities are.”
Sharpe finished the game with career highs in points with 12 and minutes with 21. The Birmingham native was pleased with his high amount of playing time.
“When my name is called I’m going to go out there and do all I can,” Sharpe said. “When I started hitting a couple shots, then I felt like I should be out there. Then I got a couple of rebounds, a couple of blocks, I started feeling better about myself. Whatever I can do to help out Lawrence Roberts, that’s what I’m going to do.”
The Bulldogs pulled to within a point on two occasions in the final minutes, but a jumper from Bass and a three from the corner from Mitchell, coupled with missed free throws down the stretch by Ervin and Ontario Harper put the game out of reach.
The loss marked the continuation of the road woes that have plagued the MSU squad in league play. However, Stansbury refused to blame the struggles on the loss of Winsome Frazier.
“What we have is what we have,” Stansbury said. “We’ve got to find ways to get tougher, execute better down the stretch and give ourselves a chance to win on the road.”