DALLAS — Senior Marie Ferdinand shattered her career high with 34 points to lead the 14th-ranked LSU Lady Tigers to a 83-62 win over SMU on Tuesday night in Dallas, Texas.
The win came at the end of a three-game road swing that saw LSU (3-3) drop two games to top 15 teams, Penn State and Southwest Missouri State, in St. Thomas, V.I. over the weekend. Next up for the Lady Tigers is in-state rival Tulane on Sunday, Dec. 10 as they take time off to concentrate on final exams next week.
“We just got a great effort from everybody and we needed this,” said LSU head coach Sue Gunter. “It would have been horrible for us to have another loss and then have to go home and go through exams.”
LSU’s lead shrank to 73-60 with 3:10 remaining and SMU looked to force the action with full court defense. But the Lady Tigers had little trouble with the Mustang press as they finished the game on a 10-2 run.
Ferdinand was the story of the night as she hit 15 of 19 shots from the floor and added a team-high eight rebounds to go along with three assists and two steals. Her 34 points, nine more than her previous best, are the most since Cornelia Gaydon set the school record with 49 against Jackson State in 1995.
Led by Ferdinand, LSU shot 62 percent from the floor on 36 of 58 shooting. April Brown and Roneeka Hodges had 14 points each, giving the Lady Tigers three players in double-figures.
“The games that we have played so far this year, I have looked at the stat sheet and seen anywhere from 29 percent to 39 percent and that is just not the way that we play. You just have to have faith and confidence that this offense will come around and it will,” said Gunter of the team’s offensive turnaround.
LSU opened the game with a 5-0 lead, which stretched into a 30-14 advantage on a Doneeka Hodges three-pointer with 7:32 left in the first half. The Lady Tigers would hold a 42-27 lead at halftime.
“What we talked about early was what happened when we were in the islands,”said Gunter. “We really got beat in the first four minutes (in the last two games) and tonight one of our goals was to win the first four minutes before the (official) timeout was called.”
In the second half, Rucker knocked down two free throws to cap a 17-9 run that spanned eight minutes and cut the LSU lead to 59-53 with just under nine minutes to play. Ferdinand answered, scoring eight points in the next four minutes to spark a 14-3 Lady Tiger run that gave them a 73-56 lead with 4:09 remaining.
“The players played well and did what we asked them to do,” Gunter said. “SMU made their run in the second half. But, we were able to dig our heels in and hold them off.”
Defense was also a key for the Lady Tigers as they shut down SMU’s top offensive threat, D-dra Rucker, who had just seven points on 2-of-13 shooting. Kenni Patton, averaging 5.3 points per game coming into the contest, led the Mustangs with 18 points.
“We knew what we had to do and who we really needed to contest and if you do that and someone beats you then there is not much you can do. But I thought tonight we did what we had to do at the time and it worked for us.”
Forward Ke-Ke Tardy, the teams tallest player, missed her third straight game with a thigh injury while All-SEC center DeTrina White missed her sixth game of the year due to a back injury.