BATON ROUGE, La. (AP)—Jaime Lloreda scored 15 points and pulled down 16 rebounds as LSU defeated Southern Mississippi 65-50 on Saturday.
Brandon Bass added 15 points for LSU, which shot just 2-of-23 from the 3-point range.
Antonio Hudson scored 10 points for the Tigers before leaving the game with an injured left ankle.
The Tigers extended their six-point halftime lead to 40-29 with 15:40 left on a short jumper by Darrel Mitchell.
Southern Miss (5-3), which trailed for all except the first 3:22 of the game, began to cut into the LSU lead, whittling it to 44-41 on two Clement Green free throws with 9:59 left.
The Golden Eagles had the ball seconds later with a chance to further cut the deficit, but a turnover and back-to-back jumpers by Hudson and a Bass dunk brought the LSU lead to 50-41 with eight minutes left.
LSU outscored the Eagles 15-7 in the final minutes.
Charles Gaines led the Eagles with 14 points and Jasper Johnson added 12. The Eagles shot just 28.6 percent from the floor (16-for-56) and was outscored by LSU 32-14 in the paint despite holding a 42-35 edge in rebounding.