BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana State coach John Brady was concerned about the fact that prior to Tuesday's game with Utah, the Tigers had not played in 17 days because of final exams.
Brady's concerns were unfounded.
LSU played its best defensive game of the season by limiting the Utes to 34.8 percent shooting from the floor and the Tigers never trailed in a 65-51 victory.
"I thought our team gave a pretty good defensive effort, and I appreciated that," Brady said. "We came out like we were supposed to, and for the most part, we applied good pressure."
The Tigers (5-0) weren't as sharp on offense, shooting 43.3 percent from the field, but thanks to the inside tandem of Jaime Lloreda and Brandon Bass, LSU controlled Utah's larger front line and held a 17-7 edge in offensive rebounding.
"LSU is a good team that is very physical, and they intimidated us," Utah coach Rick Majerus said. "They got 17 offensive boards and 11 baskets off of those rebounds, and that's 22 points right there when we didn't block out."
Lloreda missed several minutes in the second half after suffering a cut on his right hand, and then picking up his fourth foul, but he once again led LSU in scoring with 16 points.
Bass scored 11 of his 15 points in the second half, as he, Lloreda and Regis Koundjia each had eight rebounds as the Tigers outrebounded the Utes (6-3) 42-30.
"This was a good victory over a well-coached Utah team that knows how to play and is used to winning," Brady said. "I complimented our players for their effort, especially after being off for 16 days."
Utah, which trailed by double figures for most of the game, had its best opportunity to get back into the contest when Lloreda picked up his fourth foul with 6:57 left, and the Utes' Justin Hawkins completed a three-point play to make it 50-41.
But Darrel Mitchell, who scored 13 points off of the LSU bench, hit a pair of free throws and then banked a 10-footer in from the left side to make it 56-43 with 5:02 left, and Utah would not get any closer.
"Like all well-coached teams, Utah was not going to fall apart, and they made a run," Brady said. "But Darrel Mitchell made a big basket and made some positive play to help us stretch it back out."
Utah, which was held to under 60 points for the sixth time this season, got a double-double of 11 points and 11 rebounds from Andrew Bogut, with Tim Frost and Hawkins scoring 10 points each.
The game was tied only once, and briefly at that, as LSU took the lead back for good on a 3-pointer by Antonio Hudson with just 2:17 elapsed in the contest. Utah was still within 22-15 with 7:57 left, and the score remained that way for more than two minutes before the Tigers went on a 8-0 run that expanded the Tiger lead to 30-15 with 2:56 left before halftime on a fallaway jumper by Mitchell.
"They took it to us and pounded us right there," Majerus said. "We had some defensive problems, but LSU is a very good team that played very hard."
LSU, which led 30-19 at halftime, continued its flurry in the second half and led by as many as 17 at 42-25 with 12:56 remaining.
"We had some mental lapses, but we played pretty well," Hudson said. "Once we got into the flow of our game, we settled down and played well."
Lloreda injured his right hand between his first and second fingers when he jammed it against the rim trying to block a shot by Tim Frost. The 6-foot-9 senior from Panama needed six stitches following the game.