BATON ROUGE — LSU’s seventh-ranked women’s basketball team will play its final non-conference regular-season game on Tuesday as the Lady Tigers play host to winless Centenary 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 found on the Internet at www.LSUsports.net.
LSU enters the contest riding a six-game winning streak as the Lady Tigers upped their overall record to 16-3 after Sunday’s 64-58 victory over 20th-ranked Mississippi State in Starkville. LSU also leads the Southeastern Conference with a 6-1 league mark. After Tuesday’s game against Centenary, LSU closes out its schedule with seven straight SEC games.
LSU will carry a 44-game non-conference winning streak into the Centenary contest. The streak, which is a school-record, dates back to Jan. 30, 1995 when the Lady Tigers lost to Lamar, 68-62.
Centenary is in its first season of women’s basketball since dropping the sport back in the early 1980’s. The Ladies are 0-19 overall and they only carry seven players on their roster.
“This is a chance for us to help out one of the state school’s by paying them a guarantee,? LSU coach Sue Gunter said. “They brought back basketball this year and they called us for a game. We had a team pull out of a game so that allowed us to put them on the schedule.
“I’ve been doing this much too long to overlook anybody. They’re 0-19 so you figure they aren’t going to be a powerhouse, but you don’t ever want to disrespect anybody. I learned a long time ago that those type of teams can come up and bite you.”
Leading the way for the Lady Tigers will be 5-foot-11 senior guard/forward Katrina Hibbert, who was named SEC Player of the Week on Monday following her 22-point effort against Mississippi State. Hibbert, who is averaging 14.2 points a game, leads the SEC in assists at 6.0 a contest.
Joining Hibbert in the lineup for the Lady Tigers will be 5-11 junior guard Angelia Crockett (4.5 points, 4.2 assists), 5-9 junior guard Marie Ferdinand (17.8 points, 4.2 rebounds), 5-11 junior forward April Brown (11.4 points, 4.7 rebounds) and 5-11 sophomore center DeTrina White (12 .5 points and 9.8 rebounds). White leads the SEC in rebounds and double-doubles.
“Hopefully this will be one of those games that we can get some other players some playing time,” Gunter said. “We’ll go with our same starters and we’ll treat this just like any other game. We need to get some of our starters some rest because we’ve been pushing them really hard over the last few weeks.”
Sandy Burris, a 5-10 sophomore guard, leads Centenary with 9.8 points a game.