30 yrs ago this afternoon LSU suffered a horrible clock malfunction which cost

a victory -- at the Assembly Center.Tennessee "beat" LSU, 54-53.

Weird game and really, an even weirder season. If you look at the record book for 1981-1982, you'll see 14-14,but oddly enough an 11-7 SEC mark where somehow,someway LSU was in the chace for the SEC title really, until this Tennessee game. LSU played an absolutely brutal non-conference schedule which was rather odd considering four starters were going to have to be replaced after the Final Four team.Among other games,LSU opened at UNLV, played in the Sugar Bowl basketball tournament against Houston in Olajawon's freshman year (where they made it back to the Superdome for the Final Four), a good Wake Forest team and another game in the Superdome really built up to set a record for attendance for a college basketball game against UCLA,built up as "Louisiana vs the Legend" as Dale brought in John Wooden for the game as well as Wichita State.

LSU started off 3-4 but once in conference play LSU got out to a 10-3 mark with the only three losses on the road to the SEC's top three teams that year, Alabama,Kentucky and Tennessee. LSU's home win over then #10 Alabama put the Tigers at the 10-3 mark with a 73-68 win. But midway in the second half of that game,Leonard Mitchell, the lone returning player suffered a knee injury as he was going in for a breakaway slam before being tripped from behind accidentially by the Tide's Phillip Lockett.LSU hung on for the win, but Georgia and Dominique Wilkins came in to Baton Rouge and ended LSU's 23 game home winning streak by scoring the last six points in the final minute in a 57-51 win.The Tigers' slipped again as Auburn got revenge in a ten point win after Derrick Taylor had broken their hearts with a 35 footer a month earlier.

The Vols came in with a one game lead over Kentucky, and two game lead over LSU in league play at 12-3 and 17-6 overall having been ranked in and out of the top 20 all year.Honestly, the game should have never gone down to the wire. LSU jumped out to an 8-0 lead and extended it to 17-2 on the SEC TV game of the week.But Tennessee and Dale Ellis chipped away and LSU cooled off and the Vols took their first lead with 3:50 left. It was nip and tuck and LSU went up 53-52 when Mitchell,in his first game back,scored with :10.Tennessee called timeout with :08 under the goal.

Once play resumed Tennessee's Michael Brooks brought the ball up court and once he crossed center court he looked looked up at the scoreboard.Almost like a bad sit com scene,most of the crowd then looked up,too.:08still left.The crowd and LSU's coaching staff went nuts with Brown going to the scorers table. Brooks was met at midcourt and passed to Steve Ray who missed one at what should have been the buzzer, but Tennessee center Dan Federmann tipped one end right as the clock hit :00.

To say the Assembly Center was in an uproar was an understatement. Fortunately it was Mardi Gras weekend so the student section was only 70% full. Still over 12,000 saw the clock sit still for at least two seconds if not longer.At midcourt after a brief discussion with the scorer, Tom Henry, lead referee Paul Galvan as well as Brown and UT's Don DeVoe, as Brown flew into a rage DeVoe signaled for his team to go the lockerroom -- and man,they SPRINTED !!

No LSU player,coach or fan went anywhere.Finally after 35 minutes then chancellor James Wharton came down and grabbed the microphone and said the last few seconds couldn't be played as Tennessee had boarded their bus and was headed to the airport. (I had a friend at the time that lack of a 'real title' was the Assembly Center visiting team locker room mgr. He said the Vols didn't shower just threw their clothes on and got the hell out of there.)Wharton went on to say LSU would ask the SEC to replay the last :08 in 10 days at the SEC tournament in Lexington.Somehow for the next day or so that was the story, that the last :08 would indeed be played in Lexington.

Finally, that Monday the SEC basically said "tough" and Tennessee won. BTW, on Sunday in a made for TV game on NBC Dick Enberg and Al McGuire called Wichita State's one point win in the Assembly Center, 66-65 as another clock problem happened this time with only a minute left.