LSU defeats Vanderbilt behind flowing Waters
BATON ROUGE, La. — Tremont Waters had 28 points and nine assists, and LSU beat Vanderbilt 88-78 on Tuesday night to keep the Commodores winless on the road.
Wayde Sims scored a career-high 16 for LSU (16-11, 7-8 Southeastern Conference), which guaranteed itself a winning season one year after going 10-21 overall, including 2-16 in league play.
LSU’s best interior player, Duop Reath, played with a black brace on his injured left ankle and was in the game for only nine minutes. But Sims and Aaron Epps picked up the slack. Epps dunked four times and finished with 15 points. Sims threw down three dunks.
Riley LaChance scored 26 for Vanderbilt (11-17, 5-10), which was coming off consecutive home victories. Jeff Roberson had 20 points and Saben Lee 15.
The Tigers led by as many as 15 points early in the second half and were still up by 11 before LaChance’s free throws with a little less than 10 minutes to go began a 7-2 run — capped by Roberson’s 3 — that tightened the score to 66-60.
But Waters repeatedly made momentumchanging plays, such as his steal from Roberson for a breakaway layup that made it 71-62 with about 5 minutes left.
Vanderbilt was as close as six points after Roberson’s free throws with 2:49 left. But Waters stunted Vandy’s momentum again with a driving layup and the Tigers made four straight free throws to go back up by 12 with 1:02 to go, virtually sealing LSU’s second straight victory and fifth straight at home.
LSU led for most of the first half but not by more than five until Waters began to assert himself more as a scorer. His driving reverse layup and off-balance floater while being fouled put the Tigers up by nine.
Vandy briefly cut its deficit back to five, but Waters responded by assisting on Sims dunk and hitting a crowd-pleasing jumper at the first-half horn from several feet behind the 3-point line to make it 39-29.
Skylar Mays had 14 points for LSU.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Breein Tyree scored 25 points, including a game-tying basket in regulation, and Ole Miss defeated Missouri in overtime.
The Rebels took the lead with 4:14 left in overtime and managed to hold on the rest of the way despite a series of fouls and turnovers.
With 15 seconds left and Ole Miss up one, the Rebels turned it over, but Terence Davis picked up a mammoth block on the other end with seven seconds left. Ole Miss closed it out with free throws.
The Rebels (12-16, 5-10 Southeastern conference) led for over 36 minutes, but had to shield a Missouri comeback attempt throughout the second half. The Tigers built a six-point lead with 2:38 remaining, but they allowed Ole Miss to climb back. Tyree drilled a floater with three seconds left to send the game into overtime.
Jontay Porter led Missouri (18-10, 8-7) with 17 points and contributed nine rebounds. Six different Tigers scored in double-digits, but Missouri turned the ball over 21 times, limiting its offensive flow for much of the game. Jeremiah Tilmon picked up a double-double, scoring 12 points and adding 12 rebounds, but shot just 2 for 6 from the free-throw line.