STARKVILLE, Miss. — The LSU road show continued on Sunday as the 12th-ranked Lady Tigers, behind 22 points from Katrina Hibbert, won its fourth straight Southeastern Conference road game with a 64-58 victory over 20th-ranked Mississippi State here at Humphrey Coliseum.
The four straight SEC road wins for LSU (16-3) is the longest streak in school history and it’s also enabled the Lady Tigers to remain atop the SEC standings with a 6-1 league mark. Overall, LSU has won five consecutive SEC games, the second-longest streak in school history, and the Lady Tigers’ 6-1 league record ties the best start in conference play in school history. The 1996-97 team also won six of its first seven conference games.
Mississippi State, which had its 17-game home court winning streak snapped, dropped to 16-3 overall and 5-3 in league play. LSU’s win over Mississippi State is the seventh straight over the Lady Bulldogs by the Lady Tigers, including the second this year.
In both games against Mississippi State this year, LSU has held the SEC’s second-leading scoring team at over 85 points a game, to nearly 30 points below its average. Three weeks ago in Baton Rouge, Mississippi State scored only 54 points in a loss to the Lady Tigers.
Joining Hibbert in double-figures for the Lady Tigers were Marie Ferdinand with 16 points and DeTrina White with 13 points and nine rebounds. Jennifer Fambrough led Mississippi State with 16 points, while the SEC’s leading scorer, LaToya Thomas, was held to just 14 points, seven below her average.
“I thought this game was won on the difference end of the floor,” LSU coach Sue Gunter said. “This is a big win for us. Mississippi State is a very difficult team to defend. We did the things that you have to do against good basketball teams and that’s defend well and execute on the offensive end.”
After trailing for all but the first two minutes of the contest, Mississippi State regained the lead midway through the second half, 49-48, on a jumper by Fambrough at the 10:43. The State lead increased to 51-48 20 seconds later on fast-break basket by Thomas.
With the momentum having shifted back to Mississippi State the Lady Tigers called a timeout. After the timeout, LSU responded with six straight points, the first two coming from Angelia Crockett, and then White’s basket at the 9:00 mark put the Lady Tigers up for good at 52-51.
“The teams we play in this league are good teams and we knew they were going to make a run at us,” Gunter said. “We had to weather their run. At the timeout we didn’t do anything different. We just settled the kids down and we talked about it being a 40 minute game.
“We got back to doing the things that we do well and one of those is playing good defense. We got a couple of stops on the defensive end and we were able to score on our end to regain the lead.”
Another basket by White increased the Lady Tiger advantage to 56-52 at the 5:36 mark. Mississippi State pulled to within one, 57-56, on a jumper by Thomas a minute later, but once again the Lady Tigers answered the Lady Bulldog run as Hibbert hit her fourth 3-pointer of the game to stretch the lead to 60-56 at the 3:53 mark.
“Katrina came up big on both ends of the floor for us today,” Gunter said. “She hit a couple of huge 3’s and she came up with a couple of critical steals on the defense end. She just did whatever we needed to win the game.”
Mississippi State scored for the last time on jumper by Fambrough at the 3:18 mark to pull the Lady Bulldogs back to within two at 60-58. Ferdinand hit four free throws in the final four seconds of the contest to ice the win for the Lady Tigers.
In the first half, Missisissippi State opened the game by scoring the first five points of the contest. LSU came back with nine consecutive points to take a 9-5 lead on a 3-pointer by Hibbert. LSU eventually led by as many as 11 points, 33-22, on a jumper by April Brown at the 4:20 mark. LSU led 36-32 at halftime and the Lady Tigers kept the lead until the Lady Bulldogs briefly grabbed the advantage midway in the second half.
For the game, LSU shot 50.9 percent from the floor while limiting the Lady Bulldogs to just 45.8 percent. LSU also outrebounded Mississippi State, 29-25.