BATON ROUGE — LSU’s 13th-ranked women’s basketball team will put its six-game winning streak on the line Wednesday as the Lady Tigers play host to SMU at 7 p.m. at the Maravich Assembly Center.
The game will be broadcast by the LSU Sports Network and can be heard in the Baton Rouge area on 107.3 FM. The game can also be heard on the internet at www.LSUSports.net.
The Lady Tigers enter the contest with a 6-1 mark after beating Michigan, 67-56, on Saturday in Baton Rouge. LSU has not loss since a 56-49 season-opening seback to Texas Tech. SMU has lost three straight, including Monday’s 81-69 defeat at Tulane. The Mustangs are 3-3 overall.
In addition to its six-game winning streak, the Lady Tigers will also carry a 12-game home court winning streak into the SMU contest. LSU has won a school-record 39 straight non-conference home games and the Lady Tigers are 23-1 in December since the 1996-97 season.
“It’s still so early in the season and we have so many things that we have to improve on,” LSU coach Sue Gunter said. “Even though we played so well against Georgia, we still struggled against Michigan so we still have a lot of work to do. We are just trying to get better and put together a complete game each time we take the floor.
“SMU played us very tough at their place last year and they return basically the same team that reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament last year. They will be very difficult to beat. They are very talented and they have a great deal of experience to go along with an outstanding coaching staff.”
The Lady Tigers continue to use its defense as their spark plug. The Lady Tigers lead the Southeastern Conference in scoring defense, allowing just 52.7 points a contest, and LSU ranks first in steals with 14.1 a contest. LSU’s turnover margin of plus-8.4 a contest also leads the league.
“It seems like with this team, it normally starts with our defense,” Gunter said. “We make something happen on the defensive end of the floor, we get a couple of transition baskets, and that seems to give us a little bit of extra energy.”
Offensively, the Lady Tigers continued to be lead by the play of 5-foot-11senior guard/forward Katrina Hibbert and 5-9 junior guard Marie Ferdinand. Hibbert ranks third on the team with 13.3 points a contest, but her 8.7 assists and 4.6 steals lead the SEC and rank among the top five nationally. Ferdinand leads the squad and ranks third in the SEC with 18.3 points a contest. Ferdinand also ranks second in the SEC in steals with 4.1 a game and she”s third in the league with 6.7 assists a contest.
Rounding out the Lady Tiger lineup will be 5-10 junior guard Angelia Crockett (1.6 points, 1.4 rebounds), 5-11 junior forward April Brown (14.1, 4.3) and 5-11 sophomore center DeTrina White (11.1, 8.1).
Hibbert, Ferdinand, Brown and White will all be in LSU’s starting lineup for the 38th straight game against SMU.
SMU, who enters the contest with a 2-4 all-time mark against LSU, starts three juniors and a pair of seniors. Karlin Kennedy, a 6-1 senior forward, leads the Mustangs with 15.5 points and 10.2 rebounds a game. Kennedy has 13 points and 17 rebounds against Tulane on Monday. D-dra Rucker, a 5-10 junior guard, averages 15.5 points and 4.7 rebounds a game.