LSU was able to go into the Stephen C. O'Connell Center in Gainesville, Florida, and beat a Florida team that started strong and went down from there.

By winning this SEC battle that drew blood (Dorian Finney-Smith's forearm), LSU ended a 6 game losing streak against Florida.

For LSU it was another dominate performance from the M&M Boys - the nickname of the frontcourt duo of Jordan Mickey and Jarell Martin. On Tuesday, the Martin and Mickey tandem were in top form. Jarell Martin, the better scorer of the two, had a game high 22 points and did help in the rebounding department by grabbing 8. Jordan Mickey, the better defender of the two, had 14 points and 14 rebounds for his 10th double-double of the season. Why it would be easy to give Martin and Mickey all of the credit, there is another Tiger who deserves a lot of credit also. Tim Quarterman.

Sophomore guard Tim Quarterman, once again came off of the bench for the Tigers and had himself a game. Starting point guard Josh Gray only had 5 points and 1 assist in 17 minutes of play. In comes Quarterman to score 15 points, dish 8 assists, and grab 5 rebounds. Quarterman has become the "glue" for LSU in a sense. Quarterman has consistently come in to provide scoring, passing, and rebounding from the 1,2, and 3 position.

After the game LSU head coach Johnny Jones had the following comments:

We knew we were in for a tough task, but I thought our guys really stepped up and played well. It was going to be important for us in the second half to make sure that we rebounded and defended extremely hard, and I thought we were able to do that down the stretch.”

As for Florida, they wouldn't see a single player score over 10 points. Forward Dorian Finney-Smith had a near double-double with 10 points and 8 rebounds.

Florida had an obvious task trying to defend the two star bigs of LSU. It's safe to assume they miss Patrick Young about now. Most times when a team is struggling to bang with their opponent, they try to make up for it from behind the arc. Florida ended up losing that battle as well. The Gators shot a measly 3 of 16, while the Tigers went 8 for 13.

A usually ruckus crowd for the Gators were fairly quiet for the 2nd half as they witnessed something they don't often see. Their Gators losing. Florida went an impressive 18-0 in SEC play last season.

After the game, Florida forward Alex Murphy had the following to say:

"If we don't come together as a team, we'll continue to get embarrassed,"

Up next for LSU is the big team of Vanderbilt. As for the Gators they try to avoid losing three straight SEC games as they take on Ole Miss.

VAVEL Logo
About the author