BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) Very little came easily for LSU in a back-and-forth game against Louisiana Tech.

It was up to freshman Ja'vonte Smart to bail out the 22nd-ranked Tigers. Smart scored 16 points, and his late 3-pointer put LSU ahead for good in a 74-67 victory on Friday night.

"We found a way to get it done," coach Will Wade said. "At the end of the day, the goal was to be 4-0 and we're 4-0. We need to get better these next couple of days in practice. I did think our defense improved. We didn't move the ball as well as we needed to on offense, but we can get some of that stuff corrected."