LSU falls to Kentucky, 79-76

BATON ROUGE – The LSU Tigers were able to out rebound the No. 10 Kentucky Wildcats Tuesday night, but the Wildcats shot 74 percent in the second half and made 7-of-8 three-pointers in the final 20 minutes to score a 79-76 win over the Tigers at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. 

The Tigers are now 18-8 overall and 9-4 in the SEC, two games behind the league leading Wildcats at 21-5 and 11-2 in the league. 

The Wildcats were 17-of-23 from the field in the second half for 73.9 percent as they built a one-point halftime advantage to two 15-point leads, at 67-52 and 69-54 at the 4:26 mark. From there, LSU outscored Kentucky, 20-10, to cut the margin to the final score. 

The teams played a close first half with 10 lead changes and six ties with LSU getting a 28-24 advantage with 3:11 to go. But Kentucky got a bucket from Nick Richards and a three from Ashton Hagans while LSU turned the ball over three times and missed three shots to allow the Wildcats to go to the break, 29-28. 

Each team had five players in double figures with one bench player for the Wildcats and three off the bench for LSU contributing in double figures. 

Immanuel Quickley had 21 points and six assists to lead Kentucky with Tyrese Maxey adding 14, Richards 13 and Hagans and Nate Sestina each scored 11. 

The Tigers were led by Skylar Mays with 17 points with Darius Days getting 13 points and 11 rebounds. Marlon Taylor also had 13 while Charles Manning Jr., had his first double figure scoring game since his foot surgery, scoring 11, and Trendon Watford put in 10. 

It was Days' eighth double of the season and of his 11 rebounds, eight were offensive boards. 

The Tigers out rebounded the Wildcats, 45-33 with a 23-13 advantage in offensive boards. LSU had a 26-12 advantage in second chance points. The Wildcats were able to get the advantage in an area LSU has had success in, scoring a 36-28 advantage in the paint. Kentucky blocked 11 LSU shots, the first time an opponent has blocked 10 or more shots since Texas A&M in Jan. 2017. 

LSU shot 39.4 percent for the game (26-of-66) and 7-of-20 from the arc. LSU was 17-of-24 at the free throw line. The Wildcats finished the night 29-of-61 (47.5%) after shooting just 31.6 percent (12-38) in the first half and 2-of-10 from the arc. Kentucky finished the night 9-of-18 from the arc and 12-of-16 at the free throw line. 

The paid attendance of 13,260 was the 12th largest in the present seating configuration (since 2006).

The Tigers now go on the road for two games starting Saturday at South Carolina before traveling to Florida on Feb. 26. LSU's next home game is Feb. 29 against Texas A&M. Tickets are available at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office and online at LSUtix.net.

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LSU Head Coach Will Wade

On the performance of Kentucky's Nate Sestina…
"He's a good player. Kentucky's road splits are better shooting the ball. We left him wide open. He's a good college player. Of course he's going to make a wide open shot. He had been shooting it well earlier in the year. I knew he had struggled lately. He struggled against Mississippi. He struggled in a couple of the other games. He had a wide open corner three, a wide open pick-and-pop three. He's a good player. He's going to make plays when you give him those opportunities."

On if this game followed familiar patterns…
"It's the same script. Give Kentucky credit. He (Coach Calipari) usually comes in here and runs all his pin downs and all that stuff. We were hoping he was going to run all that because we can run all that. Second half he just said, the hell with that, we're just going to spread them and drive them. He ran all that over-under stuff, got the mismatch and then drove the hell out of us to the front of the rim which was very, very smart. That's why he's in the hall of fame."

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