The game with Purdue went two overtimes, and even though the Boilermakers kept Williams under reasonable control, it was Wilson who stepped up with 25 points and led the way to a 94-87 win. The home floor proved as big an advantage as might have been expected. They would play the first two rounds on their home floor-to make matters worse, they were the #11 seed in the Southeast Regional (today called the South), so LSU would get homecourt advantage against two teams seeded higher, in #6 Purdue and #3 Memphis (then called “Memphis State”, in a tortured display of logic). When LSU nipped out a 72-66 win over Florida in the SEC Tournament, and then played Kentucky close-the tournament was held in Lexington-it was enough to get Brown a reprieve and test his new strategies in the NCAA Tournament.Īfter a season of bad breaks, the Tigers were gifted an enormous one by the NCAA Selection Committee, one that would be illegal today. A once-promising season had ended with a 9-9 record in conference play, 21-10 overall and an NCAA bid very much in doubt.īrown was using the adversity to his advantage, and had put together a defense that became known in national parlance as “the freak”, a mix of 2-3 and 1-3-1 zones designed to confuse offenses and befuddle opposing post players. Proving that when things go wrong, they do so all at once, chicken pox hit the team and cost them Williams’ services for a brief stretch and LSU ended the season with two losses to a good Auburn team, led by forward Chuck Person, and then to 20 th-ranked Alabama. If nothing else, the Tigers were competing with top teams, even if they weren’t beating them. The SEC record eventually reached 4-4, when they lost at Georgia, then dropped a close game at 12 th-ranked Georgetown. The January 29 th game represented the first time the Tigers had played a ranked opponent. LSU split its first four league games, then lost a close 54-52 home game with Kentucky, whom Sutton was rounding into form quickly. But there was no real post presence and the depth was gone. The team was undersized, with a very good power forward in John Williams, surrounded with three decent players in Anthony Wilson, Don Redden and Ricky Blanton. He’d already lost an immensely talented power forward in Nikita Wilson to academics. Then it seemed the wheels would come off the season.īrown lost his center, Zoran Joranovich to a knee injury. Still, the win volume nudged them up to #8 in the country by the time conference play. No one would learn much about LSU in the non-conference part of the schedule, where they went 12-0, but against a schedule that most anyone in the SEC would have as well. Hall was out as head coach after a disappointing season and Eddie Sutton was in-the door was open for the Tigers to win it again and perhaps follow it up with some NCAA Tournament success. What they had done in 1985 was win the SEC, and with Kentucky in transition-Joe B. LSU had made the Final Four under Brown in 1981, but hadn’t made real noise in March since. Let’s look back on Brown’s unlikely run to glory in ’86. And while his career had several phases and more than its share of unique moments, perhaps no postseason run was sweeter than what he put together in 1986, when LSU made the Final Four as a #11 seed, the biggest underdog to pull off the feat, until Virginia Commonwealth tied the record in 2011. There’s no man more identified with LSU basketball history than head coach Dale Brown, who ran the program from 1972-1997.