BATON ROUGE, La. — Four LSU players scored in double figures Monday as the Lady Tigers coasted past Spartak Moscow of Russia, 81-42, in an exhibition game at the Maravich Assembly Center.
LSU opens the regular season Friday versus New Mexico in the first round of the Women’s Sports Foundation Classic in Albuquerque. Tip-off is scheduled for 9 p.m. CST, and the game will be televised by College Sports Southeast.
LSU forward April Brown led all scorers Monday with 18 points, as she was 6-of-10 from the field and 6-of-11 from the foul line. Guard Marie Ferdinand, an all-America candidate, scored 16 points and grabbed a game-high nine rebounds. Forward Ke-Ke Tardy and guard Doneeka Hodges contributed 14 and 13 points, respectively.
“We just told the team in the dressing room that the game was not real pretty, but we didn’t see anything tonight that can’t be corrected,” said LSU head coach Sue Gunter, entering her 19th season at the school. “At certain times we were a little out of sync both offensively and defensively. The main thing that I was proud of was that we really did play well defensively. We are going to have to do that every game. We have the athletes, and we are very active on the defensive end of the court. We can get in transition and put a lot of pressure on our opponent.”
The Lady Tigers limited Spartak Moscow to 32.6 percent shooting from the field while forcing 37 turnovers and recording 17 steals. LSU also out-rebounded the Russian squad, 43-34, despite the absence of all-SEC center DeTrina White, who is out of action until December due to a back ailment. LSU dressed only nine players for Monday’s contest.
Spartak Moscow was led by center Julia Shulgina, the only Russian player in double figures with 10 points.
“We got an opportunity today to get some experience against some very tall players,” Gunter said. “We tried a couple of things that we like to do in the half-court defense. The substitution pattern and so forth that you saw tonight are basically things that you will be seeing throughout the year. We are still thin as far as bodies are concerned.
“Obviously it will make a huge difference when we get DeTrina White back, but right now we can’t even think about it, because she is not here. We just have to get ready for New Mexico this Friday.”
QUOTES FROM LSU HEAD COACH SUE GUNTER
“We just told the team in the dressing room that the game was not real pretty, but we didn’t see anything tonight that can’t be corrected. Coach Pokey Chapman summed it up as best as possible by saying that we got effort out of everybody on the team.”
“At certain times we were a little out of sync both offensively and defensively. The main thing that I was proud of was that we really did play well defensively. We are going to have to do that every game. We have the athletes, and we are very active on the defensive end of the court. We can get in transition and put a lot of pressure on our opponent.”
“We got an opportunity today to get some experience against some very tall players. We tried a couple of things that we like to do in the half-court defense. The substitution pattern and so forth that you saw tonight, are basically things that you will be seeing throughout the year. We have to. We are still thin as far as bodies are concerned.”
“Obviously it will make a huge difference when we get Detrina White back, but right now we can’t even think about it, because she is not here. We just have to get ready for New Mexico this Friday.”