BATON ROUGE — Marie Ferdinand scored 20 points and Katrina Hibbert added 13 points and five assists as 13th-ranked LSU overcame a sluggish effort to beat Budapest, 66-50, here Tuesday at the Maravich Assembly Center.
The contest served as the first of two exhibition games for LSU. The Lady Tigers host the Mississippi All-Stars at 2 p.m. on Sunday before opening their regular-season at the Four in the Fall Classic in Lubbock, Texas on Nov. 20.
The loss by Budapest was its third in four outings as the team from Hungary has also lost to Louisiana Tech and SMU with its win coming over Centenary.
“It was a less than spectacular win” LSU coach Sue Gunter said. “I’m very disappointed with the way we played. I was disappointed with the lack of intensity, we didn’t shoot the ball very well and we turned the ball over too many times. We just have a long way to go.
“I thought Marie (Ferdinand) played well and I thought Ke-Ke (Tardy) did a nice job coming off the bench.”
The lead see-sawed back-and-forth for most of the first half as Budapest led by three points on several occasions before the Lady Tigers used a 9-0 run late in half to take the lead for good. Trailing 19-16 at the 6:34 mark, DeTrina White hit a basket to cut the deficit to 19-18 and then Tardy tied the score at 19-19 on a free throw. Ferdinand gave the Lady Tigers the lead for good at 21-19 at the 3:55 mark on a basket in the paint. LSU, despite 14 first half turnovers, led 27-21 at halftime.
In the second half, used its full-court press to force a couple of quick turnovers that resulted in layups for the Lady Tigers. Ferdinand had a steal and a layup at the 18:22 mark and then Kisha James followed with another steal and layup just over a minute later for a 35-25 Lady Tiger lead.
LSU stretched the lead to as many as 18 points, 56-38, on another steal and layup by Ferdinand at the 5:42 mark.
For the game, the Lady Tigers shot 44 percent from the field and only 44 percent from the free throw line as LSU managed to hit just 12 of 27 from the charity stripe. Budapest hit on just 5-of-15 free throws for 33 percent, while shooting 43 percent from the field.
Ildiko Fabian led Budapest with 13 points, while Dejana Cventan added 12 points.