Feb. 13, 2000
By MARY FOSTER
AP Sports Writer
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Stromile Swift provided the scoring for LSU, buteven Swift credited the Tigers’ defense for their win over Kentucky.
Swift had 26 points and LSU’s defense harassed No. 11 Kentucky into 23turnovers in the 25th-ranked Tigers’ 70-57 win on Sunday.
“We feel like we can beat anybody when we’re playing the kind of defense weplayed today,” Swift said. “If we just stay with our game and play reallygood defense, we can keep this thing going against anybody.”
That combination was certainly effective against Kentucky, as the Tigers had17 steals.
“We go into every game knowing we have to play good defense to win,” saidfreshman point guard Torris Bright, who had five steals and seven assists.”That’s the key, a good game by our big men and playing defense.”
LSU (19-4, 6-4 Southeastern Conference) got 21 points from Brian Beshara,and Jabari Smith added 10 and eight rebounds. Swift also had eight rebounds.
“I don’t know if I have ever had a team play defensively as well or play ashard as this team has played over this last stretch of games,” LSU coach JohnBrady said. “I haven’t ever been on, or been a coach on a team that has puttogether five or six games where the effort and rebounding and commitment orguarding has been like this team.”
Kentucky (17-7, 7-3) rallied from 20 points down with 10:53 to play to getwithin five points. The Tigers then closed the game with an 11-3 run, givingthem their fourth win over a ranked team this season and second in the pastweek.
After upsetting Arizona and Oklahoma State earlier this season, LSU beat No.9 Auburn on Wednesday night.
Kentucky and LSU are second and third in the SEC in defense, allowing 66.4and 67.1 points respectively. But it was the Tigers’ defense that came upstrong Sunday, smothering the Wildcats and holding them to 37 percent shooting.
“They really took it to us, ad we really didn’t respond in the firsthalf,” Kentucky coach Tubby Smith said. “When your center and your powerforwards are getting 10 turnovers between them that’s a real problem.”
Smith said that of the first 12 times center Jamal Magloire got the ball hehad five turnovers and two shots blocked.
“It was rough out there,” Magloire said. “Smith is a big presence and ifI went over to block a shot it would leave it open for someone to come in for arebound.”
It was the second straight whipping for the Wildcats, who lost by 17 pointsto Florida.
Kentucky, winners of 13 of their last 16 games, have dominated LSU over theyears (70-20), last losing to the Tigers back in 1992 in Baton Rouge.
Saul Smith led Kentucky with 15 points and Magloire had 11 points and 10rebounds.
Jules Camara, who was expected to miss another one or two games with a footinjury, played for 12 minutes with little impact, not scoring and grabbing onlyone rebound.
After scoring only 20 points in the first 18 minutes, LSU made eight in thefinal 1:53 to take a 28-18 lead at the break.
The Tigers were up 47-27 with 10:53 left when Magloire hit one of two freethrows to start a 6-0 run for the Wildcats. Desmond Allison made five of sixfree throws in the run that cut the lead to 47-33.
Kentucky made five 3-pointers in a three-minute stretch, including one byTayshaun Prince with 4:21 left that cut LSU’s lead to 59-54.
