LSU falls in final seconds to UGA, 61-60

BATON ROUGE – Georgia’s Yante Maten capped a big second half for the Bulldogs with the winning bucket with 5.7 seconds to play to give Georgia, a rallying 61-60 win over LSU Tuesday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

Maten would score 17 points and grab eight rebounds in the second half to help erase a 10-point LSU halftime advantage.

The Tigers and Bulldogs traded buckets late with LSU taking a 60-59 lead with 41 seconds left on a field goal by Duop Reath. Georgia would miss a three-pointer but get the offensive rebound setting up the winning sequence for the Bulldogs.

LSU had a final try at it but after splitting a pair of defenders, Tremont Waters’ three-pointer was wide of the mark and LSU lost its third consecutive SEC home game to fall to 11-6 and 2-3 in the conference. Georgia is now 12-5 and 3-3 in the league.

Brandon Sampson returned to the starting lineup and had 17 points to lead the Tigers while Reath finished with 12 points. Skylar Mays had 11 points for the Tigers.

Maten, the leading scorer and rebounder in the league finished with 21 points and 12 rebounds, while Derek Ogbeide had 11. Both teams shot 43 percent from the floor for the game, but Georgia had a 38-27 advantage on the board, including 13-6 in offensive rebounds helping UGA get a 17-5 advantage in second chance points.

LSU only turned the ball over an amazing five times, the 11th time since turnovers have been tracked (1975-76) that LSU had only five, its fewest in school history.

The game was tied eight time and the lead changed hand 16 times in the game.

LSU will now travel to Nashville on Saturday for a noon game at Memorial Gymnasium with Vanderbilt on the SEC Network and the LSU Sports Radio Network. The Tigers return home for an 8 p.m. return game with Texas A&M on Tuesday, Jan. 23.

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POST-GAME QUOTES
LSU HEAD COACH WILL WADE

Opening statement …
“It’s just a tale of two halves. We controlled the pace in the first half. The second half, they (Georgia) controlled things. They got the ball to (Yante) Maten, their best player. They just physically beat us up in the paint, beat us up on the glasses. I think we were down one on the boards at halftime. We lost it by 11. They rebounded 13 of their 31 misses. That’s in the high 40s. That’s got to be. That’s almost 50 percent. They just physically beat us up. That’s pretty much all there is to it.”

On Tremont Waters’ final shot …
“I think he felt when he split the double-team that there was less time than there was. He thought there was less time than there was when he split that double team. He thought it took a little longer. I thought he probably could have gotten another couple of dribbles and probably could have gotten to the elbow. That’s the way it goes late in the game.”

On Georgia’s second half adjustments …
“They just threw the ball in the paint. They said, we are going to quit trying to run off of this offense because we are pushing their offense out. We are going to quit trying to do all of this. We are just going to get the ball in the paint, get real simple with it, drill the ball over. Pound the ball over, pound it in there to (Yante) Maten and go to work.”

On his thoughts on why the team seems to find success away from the Maravich Center …
“I thought we played decently tonight. We just didn’t make enough shots. We missed some free throws down the stretch. We missed some rebounds down the stretch. You have to make winning plays and just haven’t been able to make winning plays.”
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G Skylar Mays

On the disappointment of losing on their home court …
“Keep chipping away. The games aren’t going to get any easier. We have to come and be focused for all 40 minutes in the next home game we have.”

G Brandon Sampson

On being more aggressive now that he is back in the starting lineup …
“I don’t think it had anything to do with me starting. I told myself before the game to be more aggressive. I got time to get to the basket, getting a little bit of touches, help me spread out the in and out game. I think being aggressive just helped me out.”

On how Georgia was able to start the second half with an 8-0 run …
“Lack of execution on our part. A lot of teams come out and play well against us at half and things like that. I think it is something that we need to work on, just coming out and playing with momentum. Try to have the same defensive momentum that we had in the first half. I think we did well in the first half defensively and we kind of came out flat in the second half. That is part of the lack of execution to come out in the second half.”

F Duop Reath

On the lack of rebounding in the second half …
“They out toughed us, out rebounded us. They just out toughed us.”

On Yante Maten being a tough matchup …
“He is a good player. He knows how to play the game and be patient. He is a good player.”

On the disappointment of losing at home …
“It is very disappointing. I feel like we have to step up and do much better because we can’t keep letting our fans down and can’t keep letting people come in and do what they want in our home. So we have to step it up.”
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GEORGIA HEAD COACH MARK FOX

Opening statement …
“It was a hard fought SEC game against a very good LSU team, a team that is underappreciated. They have some great wins, so to come here and get a win, we feel very fortunate.”

On starting the second half with a 10-point deficit …
“We just were a little disorganized in the first half. We played two guys that hadn’t really played together in the back court and that back fired on us to a degree. In the second half we just tried to get a little more organized. Obviously, we rebounded the ball much better.”

On the final sequence of plays the led UGA to victory …
“We knew what we wanted to do offensively. (On the screen) they switched a guard on to Yante (Maten) and we just threw it to the bigger player and he made a play. We were fortunate to force the miss there at the end.”