OXFORD, Miss. — The 11th-ranked LSU women’s basketball team led from the opening tip until the final horn on Sunday afternoon at Ole Miss in taking home a 72-60 victory.
The win improved LSU to 13-5 on the year and 4-2 in Southeastern Conference play. Ole Miss fell to 13-4 overall and 1-3 in the SEC.
The LSU offense was clicking all afternoon as the Lady Tigers shot 64.3 percent on 26-for-42 shooting. It is the best shooting performance on the year for the Lady Tigers. The offense produced 23 assists on the 26 buckets.
Marie Ferdinand led all scorers with 19 points and seven assists. Four other Lady Tigers were in double figures as April Brown scored 12, Ke-Ke Tardy scored 11 while Angelia Crockett and Kisha James each had 10.
James hit three-pointers on back-to-back possessions after coming off the bench in the second half to spark an LSU offense that had not scored in eight minutes. The second of the threes gave the Lady Tigers a 42-27 advantage with 15:16 remaining.
The LSU lead was as high as 17 before Ole Miss trimmed it to seven at 52-45 with 8:41 remaining after Chandra Dorsey hit an 18-footer from the left wing. However, Ferdinand answered with a conventional three-point play to push the lead back to double-digits.
Ferdinand found James underneath to cap an 8-0 run that pushed the Lady Tigers lead to 65-50 with just under 3:51 to play in the contest.
Ole Miss shot just 32 percent on 21-of-64 shooting in the game, including just 10-of-26 in the second half.
LSU started the game on fire hitting 14 of its first 18 shots, including their five of their first six, from the floor. LSU’s biggest lead of the half was 20 points at 32-12 at the 6:46 mark before a Lady Rebel run made it 34-26 at the end of the half.
The Lady Tigers held a 34-16 advantage with just over five minutes remaining in the first half when Ferdinand found Tardy underneath the basket for an easy lay in. However, LSU would not score again before intermission.
Ferdinand and Brown each had 10 first-half points as both shot 4-5 from the floor. Doneeka Hodges was all over the court with four points and four assists in the half.
Ole Miss kept it close in the first half with four three-pointers, including one by Kayla Madewell which capped a 14-2 run at the end of the half. Von Kirk had a trio of three for all of her nine first-half points.
Offensive rebounding was also key for the Lady Rebels run as they hauled in 11 offensive boards compared to just nine total rebounds for LSU.
Becky Myatt, the Lady Rebels leading scorer, was held to zero points on just one field-goal attempt in the opening frame.