BATON ROUGE — Michelle Snow scored a career-high 22 points and Kristen Clement added 11 points and a career-best nine assists as second-ranked Tennessee avenged last year’s loss to LSU with an 86-50 pasting of the Lady Tigers here Thursday at the Maravich Assembly Center.
With the win, the Lady Vols improved to 11-1 overall and 1-0 in the Southeastern Conference. LSU coach Sue Gunter was denied her 599th career win for the second straight game as the Lady Tigers fell to 10-3 overall and 0-1 in league play. LSU also lost back-to-back games for the first time since the 1997-98 season.
The 36-point loss was the worst for the Lady Tigers at home since a 91-50 defeat to Louisiana Tech in 1980.
Marie Ferdinand led LSU with 16 points, while DeTrina White picked up her fourth double-double of the season with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Katrina Hibbert was held to just six points.
“It was too much Tennessee tonight,” Gunter said. “I think the one thing that disappointed me as much as anything else was our inability to keep our composure. That is the one thing I don’t expect from this team as far as breaking down and turning it over as many times as we did in the first half.
“I really can’t think of any part of our game that I am pleased with. We didn’t get the effort we needed from our backcourt and we didn’t board well. You have to give credit to Tennessee because I thought the played extremely well.”
For the game, the Lady Tigers turned the ball over a season-high 25 times, including 14 in the first half. Tennessee also outrebounded the Lady Tigers, 49-36, with 25 of the Lady Vol rebounds coming on the offensive end. LSU managed just 15 offensive rebounds.
Despite the 14 first half turnovers for the Lady Tigers, LSU actually kept the game close in the first half. LSU led briefly at 6-4, but the Lady Vols used a 15-4 run over a five-minute span to take control of the contest at 19-10 on a jumper by Tamika Catchings at the 12:44 mark. Tennessee extended the lead to 27-12 just three minutes later on a 3-pointer by Gwen Jackson.
Down by 15, the Lady Tigers put together a run of their own as LSU cut the Lady Vol lead to just eight, 31-23, after a pair of free throws by Ferdinand at the 4:12 mark. LSU had a chance to get within six a couple of times, but Tennessee denied the Lady Tigers on the offensive end. Tennessee led 37-27 at halftime.
“We started off the first five minutes of the game doing exactly what we wanted to do,” Gunter said. “It seemed like we missed a couple of easy baskets and that shook us and we started going away from what we wanted to do.”
Tennessee scored the first five points of the second half to extend the lead to 42-27 on a jumper by Snow at the 18:23 mark. LSU stayed within 13 points of the Lady Vols for the next eight minutes before an intentional foul by LSU’s Ke-Ke Tardy on Clement put the game away. Clement was intentionally fouled on a breakaway layup. She made the layup, made two free throws and then Snow hit a jumper for a six-point Tennessee possession that put the game out of reach at 61-37 with 8:20 to play.
From there it was all Tennessee as the Lady Vols closed the contest with an 11-2 run for the 36-point victory.
“I really felt that after halftime we got some people involved defensively,” Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said. “We started switching screens and it gave us a chance to get in the passing lane and player a little better in the half court game. This is really a good win for us and I’m proud of this team.”
The win was the first for Tennessee in Baton Rouge in three tries as the Lady Tigers posted a 72-69 win last year after winning 83-78 in 1997.
“Tennessee totally took us out of what we wanted to,” Gunter said. “The thing that hurt us more than anything else is the 25 turnovers.”
Tennessee returns to action on Saturday as the Lady Vols host top-ranked Connecticut in Knoxville, while LSU plays host to 20th-ranked Mississippi State on Sunday.