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Mitchell, LSU hold off Mississippi

Jan 18, 2007 - 7:23 AM BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Ticker) -- Tasmin Mitchell's second half kept Mississippi limping on the road.

Mitchell scored 14 of his 19 points in the second half as No. 19 Louisiana State posted a 62-55 victory over the Rebels in a Southeastern Conference contest.

Behind Mitchell and eight second-half points from Terry Martin, the Tigers held off a late charge by the Rebels, handing them their third straight loss on the road and fifth in six games.

"We don't execute as well as I would like," LSU coach John Brady said. "We improved down the stretch because we came out a couple of timeouts with more energy and did what we wanted to do. But it's almost like our team developed a sense of urgency when they thought things might not go our way."

With LSU (13-4, 2-1 SEC West) holding a tentative 47-46 lead with under five minutes remaining, Martin sank one of his four 3-pointers and Mitchell added another on the Tigers' next possession to push the lead to 53-46.

"I think they were double-teaming Glen (Davis) every time he got the ball, so the perimeter guys knew we had to step up," Martin said. "They double-teamed on Glen, so I just kicked it out to Tasmin or Garrett (Temple). We just tried to help and knock down a shot."

"You have to give up something," Mississippi coach Andy Kennedy said. "We play a good bit of zone (defense). Obviously, we would have a hard time matching up with (Davis) man-to-man, so you have to give up something. Good teams take advantage of that."

Mississippi (12-6, 1-3 West) could not get any closer than five points thereafter as it failed to build upon its first league win of the season, 74-72 over Arkansas on Saturday.

Keeping the Rebels away from the free-throw line in the second half helped the Tigers, who committed just seven total fouls in the contest. Mississippi finished with just two attempts from the stripe for the game, making one.

"It was just hesitancy on their part because we went out and played great team defense," Mitchell said. "We knew that (Ole Miss guard) Bam Doyne comes in shooting more free throws than he had shot attempts, and we tried to stop that, just stay in front of him, just play great defense without fouling."

Mitchell also grabbed 10 rebounds and Davis added 11 points and eight boards for LSU, which finished with just a 35-32 advantage in rebounds and 22-20 edge in points in the paint.

Despite just missing his third straight double-double by two rebounds, Davis had a second straight contest where he was not one of the focal points of the offense, finishing with just nine shots.

"For some reason Glen has not been involved as much as he should the last couple of nights," Brady said.

Darnell Lazare had eight points and seven rebounds for the Tigers, who failed to score more than 66 points for the fifth straight game.

"We are not as good offensively as we were a year ago," Brady said. "We rush a little bit at times and don't make plays as well as I would like. When we had an 11-point lead, if we had just two or three more stops and made two or three more shots it would have been a 16-point lead, which would have made it very difficult for the opponent to come back."

Clarence Sanders scored 12 points and Dwayne Curtis added 11 and 12 rebounds for the Rebels, who shot 50 percent (14-of-28) from the field in the second half in attempting a comeback.