LSU head coach Will Wade said making big shots is in Tremont Waters’ DNA.
Wade also said the Tigers were going for the win down two with 10 seconds to go, and Waters was their go-to guy.
He delivered, sinking a 30-foot three-pointer with 0.7 seconds left to help LSU (9-4 1-1 SEC) steal a road win over No. 11 Texas A&M (11-4, 0-3 SEC) at Reed Arena Saturday afternoon.
“After [Wade] drew it up, I kind of talked to myself clapping as I walked to the court,” Waters said of how he felt prior to the shot. “I said to myself I was going to make it.”
Only a freshman, Waters finished with a game-high 21 points, including 15 in the second half.
“He’d tell you it wasn’t his best game, but he made plays when he needed to down the stretch,” Wade said. “That’s what really good players do.”
A&M center Tyler Davis had his fifth double-double of the season, scoring 19 while grabbing 12 rebounds. He was unable to potentially put the game on ice though, missing a pair of free throws up two points with 11.7 seconds to go.
The Aggies had 30 free throw attempts for the game, but only made 19 of them.
“Tyler had made all of his free throws up until then,” A&M head coach Billy Kennedy said. “Those weren’t the free throws that got us beat. I thought we missed a lot of free throws before that we could’ve had a bigger lead.”
Holding three five-point leads with under 10 minutes in the game, the Aggies were unable to put it away, as the Tigers continued to claw back.
“They made some big shots,” Kennedy said. “I thought we did a good job executing down the stretch getting the ball to the right guys, making the right plays. LSU just made a heck of a play.”
A&M was without three starters – Admon Gilder (knee), Duane Wilson (knee) and Robert Williams (flu) – forcing the Aggies to roll with different rotations that were at times tough to adjust to.
Forward D.J. Hogg did return from a three-game suspension, scoring 12 points, but the Aggies were never able to gel together with usual bench players again playing starter minutes.
“You could tell he hadn’t played in a game,” Kennedy said of Hogg. “I thought in the first half trying to get comfortable, our chemistry is different because we haven’t had guys in games a whole lot. We’ve got a different lineup now.”
Runs and poor shooting on both sides created a back-and-forth affair in the first half with LSU holding just a 29-28 lead at the break.
“It was really ugly in the first half,” Kennedy said. “I thought our offensive execution wasn’t very good in the first half … We had 11 turnovers in the first half that were too many in this type of game.”
After the Tigers raced out to a 10-0 lead in the first three minutes, the Aggies had a roar of their own scoring 12-straight to take the lead with 12 minutes to go in the half.
On the heels of a three-game conference losing streak, A&M now heads on the road to face SEC blue blood Kentucky next Tuesday.
“The next game is the most important game,” Kennedy concluded. “This is a tough league. There’s no easy games. Nobody’s feeling sorry for us not having three starters.”