LSU Basketball Throttles Stetson, 99-53

BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU Tigers shot a season-high 53.8 percent from the floor and 45.2 percent from 3-point range in a wire-to-wire 99-53 victory over Stetson Tuesday night at the Maravich Center.

The Tigers held the Hatters scoreless for roughly 10 minutes to open the game, jumped out to a 17-0 lead, and never looked back. LSU went into the half with a 37-point lead and held Stetson to 10 points in the first half, the fewest points by an LSU opponent in a half since 1959. LSU led by as many as 49 points in the game.

LSU improves to 9-2 on the season, while Stetson falls to 1-10. LSU also improves to 6-0 this season when shooting over 50.0 percent, and 7-0 when opponents shoot less than 40.0 percent.

The Tigers’ final game before Christmas will be at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 21 against UNO inside the Maravich Center.

Cam Carter and Vyctorius Miller led the team with 16 points each. Cater was 6-of-10, including two 3-pointers, and logged three assists and a steal, and Miller was 5-of-8 overall, including a flurry of four triples in the second half. Corey Chest turned in his second double-double in three games with a career-high 13 points (6-of-9) and pulled down 10 rebounds, marking his fifth consecutive game with double-digit rebounds. Dji Bailey had 14 points, and Curtis Givens III had 12 and a team-high six assists with two steals to round out the top scorers for the Tigers.

Stetson missed its first 10 shots from the floor, and LSU capitalized by taking a 10-0 lead capped by a 3-pointer from Carter that forced an early timeout for the Hatters at the 14:51 mark. The Tigers’ defense forced a shot clock violation out of the timeout and continued to suffocate the Hatters’ offense as the visiting club went into the under 12-minute media timeout trailing LSU 15-0, shooting 0-of-16 from the field. After Robert Miller made two free throws to stretch the lead to 17, Stetson scored its first field goal with 10:19 on the clock before the Tigers responded with an 8-0 highlighted by triples from Jordan Sears and R. Miller, making the score 25-2 with 7:35 remaining in the half. The Fighting Tigers’ run increased to 12 unanswered points – their second-longest run of the half, and ultimately went into the locker room with a 47-10 lead behind a 30-8 run to end the opening half. LSU shot 50.0 percent from the field (16-of-32), including 40.0 percent from behind the arc (6-of-15), while holding Stetson to a 12.9 field goal percentage on 4-of-31 shooting.

Stetson scored eight of the first 11 points in the second half to cut the deficit to 32 points, but that was as close as the margin would get as LSU pushed its lead to 38 after Chest scored his seventh point of the frame, putting LSU ahead 59-21 at the 15:07 media timeout. The Tigers’ largest lead came late in the second half at 99-50 with 1:12 remaining to play as they cruised to victory, outscoring the Hatters 52-43 in the second half.

LSU finished with a season-high 48 rebounds, highlighted by a season-best 34 defensive rebounds, keeping the Hatters possessions short. The Tigers also outscored the Hatters 19-3 in second-chance points, 42-18 in paint points, 40-20 bench points and 21-1 in fastbreak points.

Stetson concluded the game shooting 30.5 percent (18-of-59) from the floor and 32.0 percent from 3-point range (8-of-25).

Mehki Ellison led Stetson with 23 points on 9-of-18 shooting and was 4-of-8 from the 3-point line. Jordan Wood added 10 points for the Hatters.

(Release via LSU Athletics)

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