BATON ROUGE — Marie Ferdinand scored 19 points and Katrina Hibbert added 13 as seventh-ranked LSU cruised past Centenary, 67-30, here Tuesday at the Maravich Assembly Center.
With the win, LSU improved to 17-3 overall and it also marked the Lady Tigers’ 45th consecutive win at home against a non-conference opponent. Since falling to Tennessee on Jan. 6, LSU has reeled off seven straight wins.
Centenary lost its 20th straight game and fell to 0-20 overall.
“The game was less than inspiring,” LSU coach Sue Gunter said. “In a way we accomplished what we wanted to in that a lot of people got to play. The starters got some rest. We didn’t play as well as we would have liked to. I still expect that when our bench is in the game that there not be much of a drop off.
“The one stat that concerns me as much as anything else on the stat sheet is the 20 turnovers. We just unleashed some of them.”
The game was never in doubt as the Lady Tigers scored the first seven points of the contest and eventually pushed the lead to 23-1 on a 3-pointer by Ferdinand at the 10:23 mark. Centenary’s first field goal of the game came at the 10:37 mark when Prudence Garrison scored in the paint to make it 23-3. LSU then reeled off eight more points to run the score to 31-3 on an eight-foot jumper by Danielle Traylor at the 8:03 mark.
With the LSU starters on the bench for the final eight minutes of the first half, the Lady Tigers managed to score only seven more points to before halftime as they took a 37-11 lead at intermission. Centenary’s 11 first half points is the fewest by an LSU opponent since Florida scored a record-low 10 against the Lady Tigers on Feb. 22, 1986.
In the second half, the LSU reached 30 points, 45-15, on a putback by April Brown at the 14:39 mark. From there, Centenary never got within 30 points the rest of the way as LSU led by as many as 37 points on several occasions. All 11 LSU players saw at least seven minutes of action in the contest with 10 of the Lady Tigers scoring at least one point.
For the game, LSU shot 53.8 percent, while holding Centenary to just 29.5 percent. Centenary also turned the ball over 31 times, compared to 20 for the Lady Tigers. The 30 points by Centenary was the fewest scored against LSU this season it was just two shy of tying the record low of 28 scored by Prairie View in 1995.
“There is a purpose to what we’re trying to do on offense and defense,” Centenary coach John Raff said. For us to execute some things against LSU tonight with so many people out, I was proud of this effort.
“LSU’s first five weren’t on the floor very much tonight. I really like their team. They’re athletic with good size and they shoot it well from the perimeter.”
The one negative for LSU against Centenary was that backup center Candice Porter went down with an injury to her left knee late in the contest. Porter, who is one of only two seniors on the squad, had to be helped off the floor. Her status, although it appeared to be serious, won’t be known until Wednesday.
“Hopefully, Candice’s injury is not an ACL,” Gunter said. “It is just one of those things that no team needs at this point in time. We won’t speculate until we have something more definite.” Last year, Porter tore the ACL in her right knee on Jan. 17 against Ole Miss. Earlier this year, LSU lost starting point guard Kisha James when she tore the ACL in her left knee in the Lady Tigers’ final exhibition contest.
LSU returns to action on Sunday when they travel to face 13th-ranked Auburn.