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LSU Tigers basketball team narrowly defeats Florida Gators 84-82
BATON ROUGE - LSU Tigers basketball team dodge their first loss in SEC play on Tuesday night as they edged out the Florida Gators 84-82 in the Maravich Center.
The Tigers improved to 6-0 in the SEC after a furious Florida rally came up half a second short when Keyontae Johnson's lay-up failed to beat the buzzer at the end of the second half.
LSU had fought back to take control of the game, and in the second half the Tigers led by 11 points when Florida mounted a frantic comeback bid. The Gators scored 20 points in the final 3:15 of play and nearly had the tying bucket to push this game to overtime however video review showed that the ball was still in Johnson's hand when time had expired.
The Tigers had six players in double-digit scoring led by Emmitt Williams with 19 points and Skylar Mays with 18 points.
LSU is back in action on Saturday as they travel to Texas to face the Longhorns in the SEC/Big12 Challenge in Austin.
Will Wade's postgame press conference, as #LSU beat Florida 84-82 to improve to 6-0 in @SEC play. Recap: https://t.co/9BNbsQS1lo https://t.co/VESBEdyS8v
— LSU Basketball (@LSUBasketball) January 22, 2020Trending News
We love a good @skylarmays4 spin move ??
— LSU Basketball (@LSUBasketball) January 22, 2020
He finished with 18 points, 7 assists and 4 steals pic.twitter.com/sFHkiJEEDR
.@LSUBasketball SURVIVES ?? pic.twitter.com/mFS5qA9lNl
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) January 22, 2020
LSU Head Coach Will Wade
On if he expected anything else in a game against Florida…
"It seems like that every time we play Florida. I was kind of expecting it a little different. We had an 11-point lead. Like I told them, we've been really good coming from behind in these situations. Now we've got to be a little better – make some better decisions playing from ahead. That was my fault. It wasn't the players fault at the end of the game. I just did a bad job with some of execution. Quite frankly, we haven't worked on it a whole bunch in practice because we spend our time working on a lot of other things. We've got some time Thursday where we can certainly get some things corrected that we need to get corrected. At the end of the day, we played well. We pounded the paint. We only took 14 threes. We did what we needed to do to win. I think we took 47 twos and took a ton of free throws, which is our formula for winning – kill people at the free-throw line, pound people in the paint. We drove the ball really well. I thought we'd be kicking ourselves. In the first half we missed seven or eight layups. We were stuck on 15 or 16 points forever. At the end of the day, we found a way. It wasn't pretty and certainly wasn't how we wanted it to end. Like I told our guys, it's a win, let's enjoy it. We're 6-0 in league. We can get to correcting things tomorrow or Thursday as we get ready for Texas."On outrebounding Florida by 10 and getting 15 offensive rebounds…
"The offensive rebounds were really important. I thought we did a really good job. (Keyontae) Johnson for them has been a real pain for us. He killed us in the games last year as a freshman. He'd been a real issue for us. I thought we did a better job boxing him out tonight, especially down the stretch – Skylar (Mays) got the jump ball and Aundre Hyatt did a good job of boxing him out. Hyatt made some winning plays. I know his stuff on the stat sheet doesn't jump off the page at you, but he made some big time, big time winning plays. At the end of the day, the rebounding certainly helped us because they're a really good rebounding team. They came in to the game with one of the best rebounding margins in the SEC."LSU Guard Skylar Mays
On LSU playing Florida…
"We have to keep it close. That's how things work out. It has worked for us, so why not stick with it. I have seen crazier things happen in my time here, but that was just a great game. Credit to (Florida), they are a quality team. They are resilient just like us. Luckily we were able to pull this one out."On Coach Will Wade's plan at the end of the game…
"We wanted to switch everything. I was guarding the guy that was taking it out, so I couldn't see what was going on. Obviously, they got an open look and luckily the buzzer went off before. We have to do a better job at the end of the game. We know how to get ourselves back in it, now we have to figure out how to take care of (a lead). Credit to these guys, we're 6-0. We just have to keep winning."On Marlon Taylor's performance…
"Marlon was awesome. He is kind of finding his footing. It has kind of been bumpy for him because he has been out so long, but credit to him because he has continued to work and just have the right mindset. Now things are turning for him, so we are just hoping he can keep that up."LSU Guard Javonte Smart
On being 6-0 in the SEC…
"It means a lot. We just want to keep winning and keep the winning streak going. If it comes down to a six-minute game, we work on that every day in practice. Coach tells us you can't foul, stay solid on defense and make free throws so we can come out with the win."On giving up threes at the end of the game…
"We gave up some big three's down the stretch. (Florida) had some big shots that brought them back in the game. We just have to follow our scouting report and not let the people that shoot the threes shoot the threes."LSU Forward Emmitt Williams
On outscoring Florida in the paint...
"It is huge, but I want to give all the credit to my whole team because we did a great job keeping the ball out of the paint. As you can see, me and Darius (Days) are short five men, but I think we are the biggest guys in the world."On the rebounding effort…
"As you can see, a lot of our teammates stepped up tonight. Marlon Taylor had a huge double-double today. He had seven rebounds in the first half, so that was huge."---
Florida Head Coach Mike White
Opening Statement …"I grew up with Greg Heiar and worked with Bill Armstrong five years, so it may just be the familiarity with each other. Maybe the coaching staff just wants to beat each other's brains in, who knows? It's been four high level, fun college basketball games which is obviously more fun for them, coming out and winning it tonight. It was just a good game; I don't know what it is. Other than that, it was two competitive games that have interesting endings. We have to find a way to bounce back and are ready to get home."
On the late-game comeback attempt…
"In LSU's defense we were playing with nothing to lose there and played out of desperation. We probably shot the ball more confidently late, more than the first 35 minutes unfortunately. I'm really proud of the effort down the stretch just to have a chance. We were a split second or two away from potentially continuing to be playing right now as we are speaking. Our guys, especially with this team, had so much youth out there. We could have just packed in out there, but our guys fought to the bitter end. We made it interesting."
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