By David Steinle
Special to LSUsports.net
Early in the second half of Thursday night’s Southeastern Conference contest with Kentucky, LSU coach Sue Gunter became incredulous when senior center Aiysha Smith was whistled for a technical foul by referee Nan Sisk. Gunter was wondering why Sisk and her fellow zebras had failed to notice that Smith had been taking a pounding inside from Wildcat post players, yet had been so quick to whistle the 6-foot-3 Detroit native for an inadvertent elbow. Rules are rules, but in such a one-sided game, Gunter wondered why did it matter?
Gunter was upset with the officiating, but she had little else to be mad about on this special night, as the Lady Tigers removed any doubt as to whether Gunter would have to wait for her 400th LSU victory, jumping out to a 6-0 lead and rolling to 53 first half points in an 82-39 victory.
LSU now has their best mark in school history, 15-0, and more importantly, the Lady Tigers are 3-0 in the SEC for the first time since the 1998-99 season and only the third time in school history, joining the 1990-91 season that ended with LSU’s only SEC tournament championship.
But LSU is exactly where Gunter and her team thought they would be at this point. Maybe not undefeated overall, but certainly 3-0 in the league. Not to say that Auburn, Ole Miss are chopped liver, because all three would be highly competitive in another conference, but in the dog-eat-dog world of the SEC, it’s tough to muscle your way into the high-rent district of Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Georgia, et. al.
Just ask Gunter and the Lady Tigers how tough it is. LSU is still searching for its first SEC regular season title, and this is as good a shot as any for the Lady Tigers to claim it, especially if they continue to play the way they did in the opening 20 minutes against a Kentucky team that shouldn’t be this bad.
“LSU’s first 10 can start for anybody,” marveled Kentucky coach Bernadette Mattox, who reached the Final Four as an assistant with the Kentucky men under Rick Pitinio, but has only been to the NCAA tourney once on her own. “They came out and really poured it on us from the beginning and stayed the course.”
Most of the pouring on Thursday came from junior Doneeka Hodge. The New Orleans native did her best imitation of former NCAA career 3-point leader Cornelia Gayden by knocking down 6 of 8 shots from outside the arc for 24 points, five off her career high from last year against Florida. LSU already has a lethal inside combination of Smith and DeTrina White, plus the almost-automatic jump shooting of super freshman Seimone Augustus, and if Doneeka and her twin, Roneeka, can continue to drain the occasional 3-ball from the corner pocket, the Lady Tigers will be even tougher to beat.
As much as Hodges’ shooting won this game, the defense was even more impressive. LSU may have slipped to 40 percent from the field in the second 20 minutes, but there was no way Kentucky was going to get any closer than the 32 point halftime deficit it faced. LSU forced 26 turnovers that turned into 29 points, and held Kentucky to a measly five assists, a ratio you’re not going to win with even if your name is Connecticut.
But Sue Gunter isn’t going to savor her 400th victory for very long, simply because she knows what’s in front of the Lady Tigers for the next 12 games, starting on Sunday in a place known as Fayetteville.
“Come Sunday at 4 p.m., we will be severely tested on both ends of the floor,” Gunter said. “Arkansas is very, very good, but hopefully we can continue to handle all the things that are thrown at us.”
What will be thrown at the Lady Tigers on Sunday is a top-10 Arkansas team that may be even better than the Christy Smith-Karyn Karlin version that took the Lady’Backs all the way to the Final Four in 1998 as a number nine seed. Arkansas coach Gary Blair, who could probably sell a top of the line hair dryer to a bald man, has sold recruits that the scenery of the Ozarks and the prospect of playing in an intimidating venue such as Bud Walton Arena has become more and more appealing.
Sue Gunter is 4-5 in Fayetteville, not bad considering the men’s basketball team has lost nine of 11 trips to the Ozarks, baseball has lost six of the last seven there, and football was decimiated in its only visit to Razorback Stadium in 1992.
But for the first time since the Hogs joined the SEC, Arkansas has a top-10 caliber women’s team, and the prospect of spanking their border rivals on national television should ensure a large sea of hog hats in Fayetteville on Sunday. A loss for LSU isn’t fatal, but with so many top-notch teams in the league, it’s better to pile up the wins now before the Tigers have to play Vanderbilt twice and host Tennessee and Georgia.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Running the table with the Lady Tigers’ remaining schedule is a very difficult proposition at best. Who’s not to say LSU won’t win more than one or two more games away from Baton Rouge the rest of the regular season, given that trips to Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt remain? But thriving on challenges is what Sue Gunter and her Lady Tigers have been about in this special season, and there’s no evidence to the contrary so far.
Buckle up. The bumpy ride starts Sunday in Arkansas, and if the Tigers can navigate it well, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in Atlanta may not seem like such a far-fetched dream.