Western lost more than its first game of the season on Tuesday night.
Louisiana State (3-0) pieced together a 12-0 run to turn a 57-57 shootout into a 71-60 win over Western in the game’s final three minutes, ensuring the Tigers a spot in the NIT Preseason Tip-off’s ‘First Four’ at Madison Square Garden next week.
Senior guard A.J. Slaughter said that with a tournament setting the season off, the type of play had more of a postseason feel.
“Always when you have a game that the winner can move on to Madison Square Garden and keep playing in the tournament, it’s always going to be a good game with high energy, and people are going to be playing their hardest,” Slaughter told the Big Red Radio Network.
Western (1-1) will host a pair of consolation games at Diddle Arena next Monday and Tuesday against teams to be announced Wednesday.
But the Toppers were a few empty possessions from facing Connecticut next Tuesday in New York.
Until LSU pulled away late in a game that featured 12 ties and 17 lead changes, neither team led by more than six points.
The difference came in two statistical categories: shooting percentage and fouls.
Although Western was more accurate from three-point range, the Toppers couldn’t match the Tigers’ 47 percent field-goal shooting. Western also racked up 23 fouls to LSU’s nine in the Tigers’ Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Assistant Coach David Boyden said the Tigers’ athleticism and depth played into the end result.
“I think our team really did a good job of competing,” Boyden said. “Obviously a much bigger and as athletic, if not a little more athletic, opponent in LSU. They came at us in waves.”
With Slaughter on the bench with two fouls, junior forward Sergio Kerusch scored 19 first-half points to give Western a one-point halftime lead. When Slaughter returned to the floor in the second half, he failed to hit a field goal until there were less than five minutes left in the game.
LSU sophomore forward Warren Storm came off the bench to score 20 points for the Tigers. Western’s bench scored a total of 14 points.
LSU junior guard Bo Spencer led all scorers with 28 points.
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