BATON ROUGE, La. – Going on the road in the Southeastern Conference is something of a death march.

So it was a little surprising to see how subdued the UK basketball team was after escaping Baton Rouge with a 68-56 victory over LSU in a game that wasn’t near that close.

UK (16-6, 6-4 SEC) rode a scorching start by its star, Tayshaun Prince, to break open a tight game early and zip to a 42-28 halftime lead. But as has been the case recently, the Cats allowed LSU (12-11, 2-8) to sneak back into the game just minutes into the second half.

"I was disappointed with the way we finished the first half," UK Coach Tubby Smith said of LSU cutting an 18-point deficit to 12 at the break. "We knew they had a little momentum. We had to come back and respond. I like the way we responded."

UK did respond, but not as quickly as they would have liked. LSU cut the deficit to nine at 44-35 just 2:20 in the second half before the Cats extended their advantage back out to 14. But LSU would not fold, again slicing the lead to 10 with 14:06 left after a steal and hallacious dunk by Jermaine Williams over the 6-foot-9 Prince.

Instead of letting a small LSU crowd get the Tigers back into the game, UK executed a perfect inbounds play after a timeout to kick off a 10-0 run the stretched the bulge to 20 and then the Cats cruised from there. The play featured Erik Daniels firing a pass to Prince who had cut to the basket untouched and softly dunked the ball to kill all the Tigers momentum.

"We finally executed it the way it was meant to be executed," Smith said of the play, a UK staple in years past.

Prince said he would have dunked it as an alley-oop by Daniels passed it a little early.

"Erik threw it early because I was so open and I guess he didn’t want to turn it over," Prince said. "We had been shooting a lot of threes and the staff knew they’d be pressuring me."

The play was the beginning of the end for LSU, who was outmanned with star Collis Temple II sitting out with a severe foot injury. Ronald Dupree had a solid game with 22 points and 13 rebounds, but UK controlled much of the action, holding LSU to just 33.3 percent shooting from the field.

Still, UK had some issues, as freshman Rashaad Carruth was benched for a second-consecutive game and junior Keith Bogans was sat down by Smith for the final 18 minutes of the game after several poor turnovers and a ill-advised shot. As the shot clanged off the rim and Bogans picked up his second cheap reach-in foul of the second half, Smith stormed down the bench and sent Chuck Hayes in for Bogans, who never re-entered the lineup.

"Keith turned the ball over and that set the tone (in the second half)," Smith said. "I didn’t think he was passing the ball and he took some bad shots."

Bogans did show up in the postgame interview session, but was mainly silent with disappointment.

"He’ll respond the right way," Prince said of his running mate. "Coach thought he got off to a slow start in the second half. He made some bad decisions, but he’ll overcome that."

Smith said Carruth was benched for failing to make practice last Thursday.

"When a guy misses practice, that’s one of our policies," Smith said of not playing Carruth. "We are making sure he understands."

What UK also understands is that it must put together more complete games if it wants to reach its vast potential.

"We got the job done," Cliff Hawkins, who dished out nine assists, said. "It was more of a relief win and we needed that. Coach wasn’t happy though. He thought we should have won by more and we let down."

Still, UK survived another road test behind Prince’s 18 points, five rebounds and career-high six blocks. Jules Camara added 12 points and six boards, while Gerald Fitch pitched in 11 points and eight rebounds.

Torris Bright followed up Dupree’s effort with 17 points of his own, but LSU had just seven assists and 15 turnovers as UK controlled them defensively.