Vandy 75 - LSU 67: It Couldn't Last

A poor shooting night, a terrible post matchup, and a couple of big three pointers by Vandy ended LSU's lucky streak and their winning streak all on one night.

Neither Marcus Thornton nor Tasmin Mitchell had an easy time of it, as Vandy played solid defense on both and held the two to a combined 10 of 28 from the field and 1 of 7 from 3-point range.  Thornton even had a bad night at the foul line, going 3 of 6.

The story of the night was Vandy's solid strategy of feeding AJ Ogilvie the basketball at every opportunity.  He got 33 on the night on 12 of 17 shooting and attempted a whopping 14 free throws.

The Tigers fell behind early, trailing by as much as 14, and trailing by 11 at halftime.  Every time LSU appeared to be starting to make a run, Vandy gave the ball to Ogilvie down low and he got an easy basket.  Vandy did not make the mistake that some other teams have made on us by failing to press their big advantage inside.

The Tigers actually erased the deficit at one point, tying the game at 60-60, but our momentum stalled.  After one Vandy free throw, we got the ball back with a chance to take the lead, but missed the shot.  Vandy's guard Brad Tinsley nailed a 3-pointer on a bit of a scramble play to push Vandy's lead back out to 4.  Those were his first three points of the game.  LSU never had another chance to take the lead again.  On a couple of occasions, we got the lead back down to 2, but Vandy always had the answer.  

The final dagger was another 3-pointer from Tinsley with 37 seconds left to push Vandy's lead back out to 5.

We have played with fire all season, and tonight we got burned.  Next we face arguably the hottest team in the SEC when we go against Auburn in Auburn.  The Fake Tigers will be fighting for a shot at the NCAA Tournament (as a slot opened up tonight when both Kentucky and Florida lost, making their season finale against each other a tournament play-in game, at best).

Tough night, but we knew this was coming.  How does this team respond to disappointment?  For the first time in a long time, we will face that test.