BATON ROUGE — Facing their third consecutive nationally ranked opponent, the LSU women’s basketball team continues its toughest stretch of the season as it hosts No. 15 Florida in the Lady Tigers’ Southeastern Conference home opener on Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Lady Tigers (7-5, 0-1 SEC) are 7-3 all-time and have won five of their last six SEC home openers. Florida (11-4, 1-1 SEC) is coming off an 11-point win over nationally ranked Auburn in its SEC home opener. LSU is 13-8 all-time against Florida and has won three of the last four meetings.
“This is a really big game for us,” said LSU head coach Sue Gunter. “We’ve been struggling a little bit, but we are looking forward to playing Florida. We played very hard in the loss to Georgia and we are trying to get our kids to understand that we may go through some adversity this season but we are going to get better from this.”
After an unexpected 11-hour bus trip to Athens, Ga., due to a winter story, LSU lost its SEC opener to Georgia last week, 72-56. Despite outscoring the Lady Bulldogs, 32-25 in the second half, the Lady Tigers could not overcome a slow start that saw Georgia take a 19-2 lead early in the game.
After the announcement that senior preseason Naismith Award candidate DeTrina White would redshirt this season, the Lady Tigers are down to dressing out only three players with prior SEC and have had to rely heavily on their five newcomers this season.
Center Aiysha Smith has stepped up to the challenge. The junior All-America transfer is averaging a team-high 14.6 points and 6.5 rebounds a game. She has scored in double-figures in all 12 Lady Tiger games this season and leads the team in field goal percentage and steals.
Florida center Vanessa Hayden has powered her way through opponents this season. The 6-4 sophomore ranks second in the nation in rebounding and third in blocked shots with 70 blocks in just 15 games. Twice named the SEC Player of the Week this year, she averages 18 points and 13 rebounds a game and recorded a triple-double against Kent State with 17 points, 12 rebounds and 10 blocked shots.
“Vanessa Hayden is playing as well as any big player in the country,” said Gunter. “We have our work cut out for us, but we are looking forward to it.”
The game will be televised on the Sunshine Network in Florida or channel 632 for Direct TV subscribers.
The Lady Tigers next travel to Knoxville, Tenn., to match up with No. 2 Tennessee on Sunday at 2 p.m. CT. The game will be televised on SEC-TV.