Tennessee had crawled through the first half and limped into halftime.
The 27-point deficit at the intermission made Donnie Tyndall less than happy, and he let his team know it in the locker room.
“He was pissed,” senior guard Josh Richardson said. “That’s all I can say. He was just upset. But at the end of his speech, he was optimistic about the second half and told us we had time to turn it around.”
The Volunteers had numerous chances to do just that, but could not recover from their porous first half performance, ultimately falling to the LSU Tigers 73-55 inside Thompson-Boling Arena on Saturday.
“That was the worst half of (basketball) of any team I’ve ever coached in 10 years,” Tyndall said. “I can’t explain it. We played hesitant, nervous and scared and that falls on my shoulders. I obviously did a bad job of preparing our team.”
From the opening tip Tennessee (14-10, 6-6 SEC) looked over-matched.
LSU (18-7, 7-5) jumped out to an early 7-0 lead and fended off a few UT mini runs to extend its lead out to double digits with 10:51 remaining in the half.
Three minutes and six seconds later, a Jaylen Patterson 3-pointer made it a 17-point game. Over the next 7:45, the Tigers continued to pile on, outscoring the Vols 18-8.
While the focal point of Saturday’s contest surrounded LSU big men Jordan Mickey and Jarell Martin, it was the Tigers’ guards who paved the way for the decisive first half lead.
Keith Hornsby, Jalyn Patterson and Tim Quarterman combined to shoot 7-of-10 from behind the 3-point line — LSU came into the game ranked 11th in the SEC in 3-point percentage at 32.9 percent — as the Tiger backcourt scored 25 points in the first half.
“You have to pick your poison against that team,” Tyndall said. “They average five and a half made threes per game and those two big guys are NBA players, so if you are going to shrink the floor and try to pack it in, you are going to give up a couple jump shots.”
But while the Tigers’ 3-point efficiency stood out, one half of the Tiger forward duo added injury to insult.
Mickey, who came into the game averaging 17 points per game on the season, scored 15 in the opening period on 6-of-9 shooting while his frontcourt counterpart, Martin, only played seven minutes because of foul trouble.
The dominant first half performance propelled the 6-foot-8, 235-pound forward to a game-high 20 points.
Mickey also corralled 11 rebounds for his 11th double-double of the season and finished three blocks shy of a triple-double — the last of which for LSU came on March 19, 1992, when Shaquille O’Neal had 26 points, 13 rebounds and 11 blocks against BYU.
“Jordan Mickey was really, really good,” Tyndall said. “So we played against big guys. We haven’t really gotten dominated by a post player that I can remember, but Mickey certainly dominated the game today.”
After being chewed out in the locker room, though, a different Tennessee team took to the court to begin the second half.
The Tigers opened up the scoring by splitting a pair of free throws, but from there, the Vols began to climb back into the game.
Over the next 4:41, the Vols rattled off a 13-0 run to make it 50-35, but never drew closer, coming within 15 points on three other occasions.
The second half resurgence was mainly due to the Vols’ defense, which limited the Tigers to a 41.9 shooting clip in the final period after they shot 64 percent in the first, as well as forced LSU to commit 10 second-half turnovers.
“We were actually playing basketball like we know how to play,” Richardson said. “We were playing our pressure defense and turned them over a couple times and got some fastbreak points.
“In the first half, we just weren’t bringing it.”
And while that first half ultimately caused a loss that snapped a six-game winning streak against LSU dating back to Jan. 28, 2009, the Vols have already shifted their attention to the No. 1 Kentucky Wildcats, who pay a visit to Knoxville on Tuesday.
“Me as a player and being real with myself, I totally agree with coach,” said junior forward Armani Moore, who finished with a team-high 16 points. “That was the most terrible half I’ve put together as a player. Now it’s all about putting that one behind us and being mentally focused this week in practice and being ready to go.”
