LSU's Shooting Boat-races Razorbacks with Struggling Offense

BATON ROUGE, La. — LSU's hot shooting carried the day. Despite a team-leading 20 points from Tramon Mark and 18 from Jalen Graham, LSU's 12-for-22 day from beyond the arc carried the Tigers to a 95-74 win on Saturday afternoon in the Pete Maravich Center.

"We have not been good defending the three all year," coach Eric Musselman said. "Can never compare teams of the past, but we’re doing the same drills. Just execution come game time is not there."

The Tigers were feeling the Bayou magic early. The Tigers started 8-for-9 from the floor with 17 first-half points from center Will Baker. The 7-footer came into the game with just nine triples on the season, but canned three triples to take an early 22-10 lead. 

Baker wasn't the only one on fire from deep, Mike Williams III hit triples on back-to-back possessions. Meanwhile, the Razorbacks' discombobulation on offense returned, with five turnovers and 0-for-4 from deep in the early going. It all equated to a 32-14 deficit, the team's largest first-half hole for the Razorbacks all season.  

The teams exchanged quick little spurts, first, the Razorbacks showed life with a 6-0 run before LSU responded with a 9-0 run. The Hogs' despite just shooting 39% from the floor in the first 20 minutes, cut the lead to 15, 45-30 at the break. Arkansas made two free throws with five-tenths left on the clock to end the half on another 6-0 run. 

The halftime interval did little to slow down LSU's hot shooting. Baker's triple from the corner stretched the LSU lead to 23 with 16 minutes left to go in the second half and capped off a 9-for-11 day from the field and 25 points.  Musselman picked up a technical foul arguing with the officials during the under-eight media timeout, which summed up the Razorbacks' afternoon. The Razorbacks never cut the lead under 15 in the second half. 

The Hogs will look to bounce back in a rematch against Georgia 5 p.m. Feb. 10 inside Bud Walton Arena. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network and fuboTV.