LSU loses to No. 25 Ole Miss on last-second shot, 72-70

BATON ROUGE – Ole Miss’ Dre Davis tip-in with 0.1 seconds remaining capped a 13-0 run to allow the No. 25 Rebels to escape with a 72-70 victory over the LSU Tigers Saturday evening at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

The run in the last 3:15 of the game, allowed the Rebels to overtake a 70-59 LSU advantage.

Ole Miss tied the game with 45 seconds left on a bucket by Jaemyn Brakefield at 70-70. LSU brought the ball up court but the Tigers were called for an offensive foul with 28 seconds to play.

After an Ole Miss timeout, the Rebels had the chance to win in regulation. Sean Pedulla missed a layup inside the final two seconds, but Davis was there for the winning tip.

The call on the floor was made for offensive basket interference by Davis, but once the replays began to be shown as the officials reviewed the play, the ball was outside the cylinder and the call was eventually reversed, leaving LSU with just 0.1 seconds on the clock.

Ole Miss is now 18-6 on the season and 7-4 in SEC play, The Tigers fall to 12-11 and 1-9 in the league.

Daimion Collins led LSU with 15 points, while Cam Carter had 16 points and four assists. Jordan Sears had 13 points, three assists and three steals. Corey Chest had 12 rebounds.

Davis led Ole Miss with 22 points, while Pedulla had 17 points. Brakefield scored 11 with four assists and Matthew Murrell scored 10 with a team high nine rebounds.

LSU shot 44.6 percent from the floor (25-of-56) with consistent numbers in both halves. LSU finished 8-of-24 from distance. But the number that haunted a team that was leading the league in free throw percentage was at the line where LSU was 12-of-25 for 48 percent. It was the first time LSU had shot below 50 percent at the line since Dec. 2022.

Ole Miss was held to just 37.7 percent (23-of-61) and just 10-of-33 in the second half. The Rebels made 6-of-23 three-pointers (26.1 percent and 20-of-29 free throws.

LSU turned the ball over 10 times to just five for the Rebels.

Ole Miss had two five-point leads in the first 7:30 of the game, before the Tigers were able to take a 19-18 lead on a Collins layup at the 9:57 mark. LSU held that advantage and led by six, 39-33, at intermission.

A three-pointer by Sears gave LSU its first double figure lead at 45-35 some 90 seconds into the half and the fans in the Maravich Center, including some 1,500 students, began to sense something might be up for the Tigers.

Ole Miss cut the lead to two, 53-51, at the 10:47 mark but a 10-2 run advanced the Tigers lead to 63-53 with 5:12 to play on two Sears free throws.

Another Sears free throw pushed the lead to 11 at 68-57 with 3:57 left and after a Murrell layup for the Rebels, Carter’s layup resulted in LSU’s final points and a 70-59 lead.

In the finish of the game, LSU had three turnovers, a missed shot attempt and two missed free throws as they tried to close out the contest which the Tigers led for 30:11.

LSU will be on the road this coming week, traveling to Arkansas on Wednesday night for an 8 p.m. contest that will be televised on ESPN2 and broadcast on the SEC Network. LSU will then travel to Oklahoma for a Feb. 15 contest.

Postgame quotes

LSU Head Coach Matt McMahon

Opening Statement…
“Credit to Ole Miss for finding ways to win down the stretch there. I’m heartbroken that I wasn’t able to help our players to the finish line there at the end of the game. I thought for 36 minutes that we played our best basketball in league play against a legitimate top-15 team in the country. To not be able to finish and make the plays we needed to make down the stretch is devastating.”

On what Ole Miss did in the final minutes to stifle the offense…
“I think we had three turnovers in the last four minutes after being pretty secure with the ball throughout the night. They were running, jumping and trapping us. We wanted to stay off the sidelines and got pinned in on one that led to a turnover. I thought we had an opportunity on a 3-on-1 to get a basket there up by five and maybe make them pay for the pressure. We never capitalized on the traps and were never able to complete a play. I think we’re 78% from the free-throw line in league play. It’s been a great strength of our team but we went 12-of-25tonight. We gave away four free points on some mistakes from our end that led to free throws for them. Credit to Ole Miss, they made the plays. I thought when we did force contested shots after playing a lot of basketball where they only had one offensive rebound, they got some big offensive rebounds down the stretch that earned them some extra possessions and they made us pay for them.”

LSU Guard Cam Carter
On what happened in the final three-minutes of the game…
“They capitalized on our mistakes.”

On the poor free-throw shooting tonight…
“We just got to get in the gym as a whole and just work.”

LSU Forward Daimion Collins
On getting in foul trouble…
“I just feel I have to do better closing the game. I had a good first half but at the end of that day it doesn’t even matter because I didn’t stay disciplined at the end to get the win.”

On how to keep morale high for the remainder of the season…
“I just feel like staying together as a team, staying the course, trusting the process. And just coming back, getting back in the lab, going to work and just trying to come out the next game and get a win.”
—
Ole Miss Coach Chris Beard

Opening Statement…
“I’ve got a lot of respect going to LSU basketball and the coach. They gave us all we could handle tonight, obviously, all the way to the buzzer. I thought they were the most aggressive team for most of the game. Really hard to guard tonight. Couldn’t get a stop for most of the game, so we knew we really had to take care of the ball and try to just score with them for a while. I think the difference in the game was we only had one turnover in the second half and five for the game and that gave our offense a chance to kind of have our defenses back when we were struggling. Late in the game I thought our guys showed a lot of poise, just giving ourselves a chance, obviously having some fortune during that time. But, just proud of the win on a night where we didn’t play our best. To get an SEC road win speaks a lot about our team and make sures that the narrative isn’t that we didn’t play our best for any other reason than LSU. They were aggressive and thought they played defensively a little bit differently than they have to this point in the season, so there’s a lot of changes there that took us a long time to adjust. I wish coach and the team the best of luck here down the stretch.”

On how the physicality of LSU could be overcome in this game…
“I don’t disagree with physical. I said aggressive but maybe both. They were really getting down the passing lanes in the first half defensively. I don’t want to speak for coach but I felt like they played a little bit different than they have in the past and it took us some time to adjust.”

*LSU press release