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DESTIN, Fla. (AP) Dedan Thomas Jr. had 18 points to propel unbeaten LSU<\/a> to a 71-62 victory over Drake<\/a> on Friday night at the Emerald Coast Classic.<\/p>\n Thomas made 6 of 14 shots with two 3-pointers for the Tigers (6-0). He was 4 of 8 from the free-throw line, adding five assists and four rebounds.<\/p>\n Michael Nowko totaled 14 points, eight rebounds and two blocks for LSU and Max Mackinnon scored 11.<\/p>\n Jalen Quinn topped Drake (4-3) with 20 points and six rebounds. Jaehshon Thomas hit four 3-pointers and scored 16, while reserve Griffen Goodbary pitched in with 10 points, five rebounds and five assists.<\/p>\n Nwoko and reserve Rashad King both had eight points in the first half to help LSU take a 38-24 lead into the break. Quinn had 11 points to account for nearly half of the Drake offense.<\/p>\n Goodbary had a three-point play to give the Bulldogs a 12-10 lead, but Thomas had a 3-pointer and a layup in a 10-0 run and the Tigers cruised into halftime.<\/p>\n Quinn hit a 3-pointer to cap a 10-4 run to begin the second half and Drake pulled within 42-34.<\/p>\n After LSU used a 13-6 spurt to push its advantage to 15, the Bulldogs battled back and cut it to 55-46 with 7:50 left on back-to-back 3-pointers by Thomas. Goodbary’s 3-pointer cut it to 66-60 with 52 seconds left, but the Bulldogs would get no closer.<\/p>\n LSU will play DePaul for the tournament championship on Saturday. Drake will play Georgia Tech for third place prior to the title game.<\/p>\n — Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP News mobile app). AP college basketball: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-basketball<\/p>\n \n Copyright 2025 STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DESTIN, Fla. (AP) Dedan Thomas Jr. had 18 points to propel unbeaten LSU to a 71-62 victory over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,11972,4253,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-441794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-drake-bulldogs","11":"tag-lsu-tigers","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-basketball","14":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115631574467085457","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}