Throughout the game, LSU insisted on defending the perimeter and leaving whichever lanky fellow happened to be playing the post to stop A.J. Ogilvy by himself.
Kevin Stallings expected it, and exploited it. "That's the way they do things," the Vandy coach said after the game. "They've won the league championship playing that way, so you can't fault them for it because it's worked the whole season. We just wanted to get the ball to A.J. and see if he could do some work for us and he was able to step up and play well."
LSU tried doubling up on Ogilvy a couple of times in the first half, but A.J. kicked it out to Jermaine Beal and the other perimeter players, who hit their shots. So LSU stuck to its perimeter defensive scheme. And Ogilvy, who actually led the team in assists with three, became a black hole in the second half, firing up inside shots and either making them or going to the line.
In all, he was 12-17 from the field and 9-14 from the line for a total of 33 points.
"We knew they were pretty skinny inside so we knew we had to pound down low," Ogilvy said. "We did a good job preparing all week for that and the coaches obviously knew what to do to get us a win down here."
"Ogilvy was a dominant force out there tonight," said LSU forward Tasmin Mitchell. "He scored most of their points in the paint. He had a lot of points, but it really wasn't him. We had a lot of opportunities to stop him. He came out and played a terrific game and did was he was supposed to do, but it wasn't him. It was us as a whole, as a team."
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