BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Tony Harris had a big first half, that turned out to be enough for Tennessee (No. 13 ESPN/USA Today, No. 15 AP).

Harris scored 18 points, all but one of them in the opening half, and the Volunteers handed LSU (unranked ESPN/USA Today, No. 21 AP) its first loss of the season, 64-59 Saturday night.

	The Vols' Terrence Woods, bottom, tries to keep a loose ball away from LSU's Lamont Roland.

Vincent Yarbrough and Ron Slay each added 11 for Tennessee (14-1, 2-0 Southeastern Conference), off to its best start since 1941-42.

"It wasn't for the faint of heart out there," Tennessee coach Jerry Green said. "We saw four post players going after each other on both sides for 40 minutes, and going very hard. There weren't any easy baskets given up by either team."

Tennessee led by 12 at halftime. But LSU (13-1, 1-1) upped its defense and held the Vols to 29 percent shooting from the field -- 8-of-27.

"I thought our second-half play was good enough to win the game," LSU coach John Brady said. "The difference was the first half."

And the difference in the first half was Harris. He shot 7-for-10, including 2-of-4 3-pointers, had four rebounds and three assists.

"In the first half we just let Tony Harris take over the game," LSU's Lamont Roland said. "We needed to contain him better and lock down on defense. We did that."

In the second half Harris made only one free throw.

"Can we talk about something positive?" Harris said. "We won."

The Tigers made their comeback without Stromile Swift, averaging over 19 points. He sat down with 15:06 left after picking up his fourth foul and did not come back until less than five minutes remained.

LSU went on a 12-2 run, beginning with Roland's basket at 15:34 that cut Tennessee's lead to 43-30. A goaltending call gave Roland his fourth basket of the run at 11:47 as LSU closed to 43-40.

Torris Bright hit a 3-pointer at 6:38 to pull the Tigers to 55-54. But LSU went cold from the field and made 5 of 8 free-throw attempts as the Vols moved ahead 62-59 with 1:46 left.

Swift fouled out with 30 seconds left, sending Terrence Woods to the free throw line. Woods hit his first foul shot but Tennessee grabbed the rebound after he missed his second. LSU fouled Harris, who made one of two for his only point of the second half.

"I think the good thing about our team is that they gave us a little bit of everything, and everything they gave us, we answered," Green said.

Jabari Smith led LSU, who played in front of its first sellout crowd since 1995, with 22 points. Roland had 12.