Chris Macaluso
LSUsports.net
Injuries, suspensions and a difficult early season schedule have all contributed to a tough start for coach Sue Gunter‘s LSU Women’s Basketball squad.
But a big 83-62 road win over SMU in Dallas Tuesday night showed Gunter there is still plenty of fight in her team.
“Right now, this is a fractured team,” Gunter said. “It seems like everytime we turn around someone else gets hurt. Tuesday night’s win was very uplifting for us.”
The win improved the Lady Tigers record to 3-3 after two very tough loses over the Thanksgiving Holiday in the Paradise Jam Classic in the Virgin Islands. LSU, without guard Angela Crockett and forward Ke-Ke Tardy, lost to 16th-ranked Southwest Missouri St. 85-75 last Friday. Both players were suspended for fighting in a 92-52 win over Sam Houston St. the week before.
The Lady Tigers lost again Saturday to ninth-ranked Penn State 86-52 in the final game of the tournament. All three LSU losses this season have been to ranked teams, the first a 56-45 defeat at the hamds of fifth-ranked Duke on Nov., 11.
Gunter said her squad won Tuesday’s game by simplifying what it needed to do to take and maintain a lead.
“Tuesday night, we executed so much better,” she said. “In the Virgin Islands, we got down in the games so quickly in each half both games.We simplified our game plan into goals. We wanted the kids to just win the first four minutes of each half. Let’s win the timeouts. If we got the ball on a timeout, we wanted to score a basket.”
LSU showed marked improvement shooting from the floor, Gunter said, hitting 62. 1percent of its shots for the game with 21 team assists. Marie Ferdinand led all scorers with 34 points after shooting 15-19 from the floor with eight rebounds. She played all 40 minutes of the game.
“Marie Ferdinand was the difference for us,” Gunter said. “She was superb. She hit four of her first five shots and she was knocking down the 8-12 foot jumper all night.”
Ferdinand may be counted on to supply more of the scoring as Lady Tiger forward April Brown may need to have minor knee surgery later this week. Brown finished the SMU game with 14 total points and six rebounds. Tardy will miss practice time as well with a slightly torn quadraceps muscle. All-SEC performer DeTrina White is still sidelined with a back injury.
Fortunately, Gunter said, because of final exams the Lady Tigers don’t return to the court until Dec. 10 when they play host to Tulane.
Because of all the injuries, it may be as late as the middle of January before the entire Lady Tiger squad is able to take the floor, Gunter said.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had such a rash of injuries and we’ve been this short on bodies,” she said. “We’re playing with seven or eight people and that’s hard to do at this level. But we’ve got some time to rest our bodies.”