BATON ROUGE — LSU’s top-ranked Lady Tigers basketball team used a solid second half both offensively and defensively to get past No. 5 Tennessee, 68-58, on Thursday night in the Maravich Center in front of the largest home crowd, 15,233, in the program’s history.
“We struggled in the first half,” LSU head coach Pokey Chatman said. “But the kids challenged themselves in the locker room at halftime and they answered the call.”
LSU (22-1, 9-0 SEC) trailed at halftime for the first time this season after the Tennessee (18-4, 8-1 SEC) hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to take a 28-27 lead. Both teams then battled back and forth for the first seven minutes of the second half before LSU took the lead for good, 42-39, on one of three 3-pointers from Scholanda Hoston with 12:33 remaining in the game.
A little more than three minutes later LSU has established a 56-43 lead. Tennessee never got closer than seven the rest of the way.
Seimone Augustus led all scorers in the game with 25 on 12 of 19 shooting. Hoston ended the game with 16 points, including those three 3-pointers. Temeka Johnson, who was honored before the game for breaking the all-time SEC assist record, added to her total with nine assists to go with nine points.
Freshman Sylvia Fowles added a career-best 17 rebounds and five blocks for LSU.
Shanna Zolman led Tennessee with 21 points.
Tennessee outrebounded LSU 44-35, but the Lady Tigers shot 52.0 percent for the floor in the game, including 57.7 percent in the second half. The Lady Vols shot 31.0 percent for the game.
“We didn’t win the war on the boards,” Chatman added,” but we did win the war in the paint. That is a stat we always look at. When you can beat Tennessee in the paint good things are happening.”
The Lady Tigers, who now sit in first-place in the Southeastern Conference, scored 35 points in the paint, while Tennessee collected just 14.
The victory for LSU snapped a 42-game SEC regular win streak by the Lady Vols and marks the first victory at home over a top-5 team for the Lady Tigers since a 72-69 win over No. 1 Tennessee on Feb. 21, 1999.
LSU hits the road next to travel to Columbia, S.C., to play South Carolina on Sunday at 1 p.m. CST.
GAME NOTES
- LSU snapped Tennessee’s 42 game SEC regular season win streak.
- LSU defeated a top-5 team at home for the first time since defeating No. 1 Tennessee on Feb. 21, 1999.
- Seimone Augustus extended her consecutive double-figure scoring streak to 49 straight games and scored at least 20 points for the 39th time in her career.
- Sylvia Fowles collected a career-high 17 rebounds and tied her career-best with five blocked shots.
- Temeka Johnson moved up to 15th on the NCAA career assist list with nine tonight and now has 829 total.