Waters’ last-second layup sends LSU to first Sweet 16 appearance since 2016
Published 6:00 pm Sunday, March 24, 2019
LSU players celebrate their 69-67 win over Maryland in a second-round game in the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament in Jacksonville, Fla., Saturday, March 23, 2019. (Will Dickey/The Florida Times-Union via AP)
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Everybody in the arena had to know what was coming.
Maryland coach Mark Turgeon was convinced of it. It took LSU interim head coach Tony Benford about a nano-second to decide on it. The Tigers’ players were all in, had seen it before.
And if there was any doubt, once LSU point guard Tremont Waters started calmly dribbling out the clock just past half court and staring down the Maryland 3-2 zone with just under 20 seconds to play, he might as well have had an neon sign atop his head flashing that he was about to drive the lane with the Tigers’ NCAA Tournament future in his hands.
“We showed them exactly what was going to happen,” Turgeon said, right down to the ball screen that LSU mountain Naz Reid was going to set near the free-throw line.
“It was just whether we were going to be able to stop it or not.”
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The Terrapins couldn’t.
The 6-foot-10, 246-pound Reid set the screen, Waters blew past it and, with an acrobatic, twisting last step, got a short layup to fall through with 3 seconds remaining Saturday to give the Tigers a 69-67 victory over Maryland in the tournament’s second round.
“Amazing feeling,” Waters said.
“Great players make great plays and he made a great play,” Benford said.
“Kid just made a heck of a play,” Turgeon said. “That’s basketball.”
The key, Benford said, was the screen Reid set that freed up Waters — “Just screen that guy and put a body on him,” were Reid’s instructions.
If Waters had met resistance, Plan B was for him to dish it off to Reid, who scored 13 points while locked up in a 40-minute war with Maryland’s imposing inside game.
“I’d rather Tre had the ball,” Reid said. “He does things like that. It’s nothing that we haven’t seen before.”
Now they’ll see something LSU hasn’t experienced in more than a dozen years.
The victory sent the No. 3 seed Tigers (28-6) to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2006. They will play the winner of Saturday’s Michigan State-Minnesota game on Friday in Washington, D.C.
“It’s huge for these guys,” said Benford, who’s 3-1 since taking over for suspended head coach Will Wade. “They’re the ones that paid the price. They’ve been through a lot. They’ve taken ownership of this team. It’s all about these guys.”
It took just about the whole lot of them after not being able to protect a 15-point first-half lead.
“We wanted to attack the paint and protect the paint and I thought we did that in the first half,” Benford said.
Led by Darius Days’ 10 points, the Tigers’ bench outscored Maryland’s 26-13 and the Tigers got 10 more points inside in that vaunted matchup.
But the game’s complexion changed over the final 16 minutes after Maryland switched to a 3-2 zone defense with LSU leading 46-31.
“He changed his defense because they couldn’t guard us in man-to-man,” Benford said. “My guys were really executing.”
Maryland prefers to play man-to-man, but Turgeon said it was in the back of his mind leading up to the game.
“Good adjustment,” Benford said. We got a little stagnant.
“We knew they were probably going to run the 3-2. We had worked on it. But when you don’t have but a day to prepare, it’s tough.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to make shots. I thought we got away (from what we were doing and settled too much (for long shots).”
LSU trailed — for the first time in the tournament — with 5:52 left on a pair of Maryland free throws.
Then it became a matter of who would blink first as neither team led by more than three for the duration.
Skylar Mays, who had led the Tigers with 16 points, including a pair of free throws that tied the score with just over a minute left, hit a clutch 3-pointer that gave LSU a 3-point lead with 40 seconds left.
That one was answered by Maryland’s Jalen Smith from deep in the corner to retie the score with 28 seconds left.
“We wanted to pretty much hold the ball,” Waters said. “Take the last shot and not shoot too quick so they wouldn’t have a chance to clear on other end and get another shot.”
It wasn’t a surprise who might take it, even with the offensive problems the Tigers were having against the Maryland defense.
“Our zone slowed them down a little,” Turgeon said. “Kept the little guy (Waters) out of the paint.”
Turgeon paused.
“Until the end.”
