KNOXVILLE -- Donnie Tyndall never has been the type of basketball coach who minced his words, and he cut to the chase pretty quickly Saturday evening.
His Tennessee basketball team matched its most lopsided loss of the season in an 18-point home defeat to LSU, but the 73-55 final score told only half of the story.
Literally.
The Tigers blitzed their way to a 47-20 halftime lead, and though the Volunteers were competitive in the second half, LSU's Southeastern Conference victory at Thompson-Boling Arena was pretty much wrapped up by halftime.
"That's a very talented team," Tyndall said seconds into his postgame news conference. "They've been a tad bit up and down, some people might say, but we certainly got them on one of their better nights tonight. I thought they played fantastic.
"I don't usually discredit anything the opponent does, and I'm not going to, because LSU made us be that bad, but that's the worst half of any team I've ever coached in 10 years, that first half. And I can't explain it.
"We missed about 10 layups. We played hesitant, played nervous, played scared. And that falls on my shoulders. I obviously did a bad job of preparing our team."
Tennessee head coach Donnie Tyndall, right, shouts at a referee on the sideline during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against LSU in Knoxville on Feb. 14, 2015. LSU won 73-55. The final margin of defeat matched Tennessee's 56-38 home loss to Alabama in January, but the Vols (14-10, 6-6) trailed by 27 points in a game that was tied for only the first 27 seconds.
LSU (18-7, 7-5) took No. 1 Kentucky to the wire on Tuesday and went wire-to-wire against Tennessee on Saturday.
"I thought our guys did a tremendous job," Tigers coach Johnny Jones said, "and may have played the best first half of basketball that we've played all year."
Jordan Mickey, one half of LSU's vaunted frontcourt duo, compiled 20 points, 11 rebounds and seven blocked shots. He blocked four shots in the opening minutes while his backcourt teammates bombed away from 3-point range. The Tigers were 7-of-10 on 3s in the first half.
LSU entered the game 10th in the SEC in 3-point shooting in league play at 32.7 percent.
The visitors' scorching start didn't make Tennessee's performance any easier to swallow for the Vols.
"It was really bad," Josh Richardson said. "Even though they were hitting shots, we just kind of stopped competing at a point. I'm proud of how the second half we came out and sparked a little bit of energy. I think we beat them in the second half, but if we come out with any type of urgency and energy in the first half, it's a different game.
"They did a good job of hitting us in the mouth," he added, "and they were clicking on all cylinders from the jump."
Tennessee scored the fewest points it has in a first half all season while allowing the second-most points and most since giving up 48 in the first half of the season-opening loss to Virginia Commonwealth.
"I definitely know," Armani Moore said after leading the Vols with 16 points and eight rebounds, "that's not the way we're capable of playing."
Tyndall shared his displeasure with his team in the locker room at halftime.
"I told them there's nothing I can say," he said. "It was embarassing. It was absolutely humiliating, as a coach, and as players they should have been the same way. It just wasn't good enough. What I can't tolerate or won't tolerate, because when things don't go your way, to put your head down and feel sorry for yourself.
"I thought that was the first time we've done that all year. Even against Alabama, when it didn't go our way the second half, we fought and we competed. We just didn't make shots that game. I didn't like our mentality the last 10 minutes of the first half at all. To their credit, we came back and we tried to compete the second half."
The Vols injected life into the crowd with a 13-0 run that made it 48-33 with nearly 17 minutes left, but it was only the first of five occasions on which Tennessee got its deficit down to 15.
"We were actually playing basketball like we know how to play," Richardson said. "We were playing our pressure defense. We turned them over a couple of times, got some fastbreak points. The first half, we just weren't bringing it."
The Tigers had answers every time, though, and used two 6-0 spurts to maintain a comfortable lead.
By then, the damage was done for the Vols.
"I'm happy we didn't come out and let them demolish us, because we know we can play with them," Moore said.
"We had to get it together when we came in at halftime or they were going to try to go up 50 on us. I feel like we did a great job of responding and showing that we could play with them. But by that time it was too late."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.