KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — LSU’s top-seeded Lady Tigers basketball team advanced to the Sweet 16 for the third straight season by defeating ninth-seeded Arizona, 76-43, Tuesday night at Thompson-Boling Arena.
LSU (31-2) started off the game with an 11-0 run and never looked back. Arizona (20-12) was held to 19 points in the first half, shooting 26.7 percent from the field. The Wildcats would finish the game shooting 25.8 percent while LSU shot 42.9 percent.
“From the very first possession of defense we established ourselves,” LSU head coach Pokey Chatman said. “We did a great job of making Arizona shoot difficult shots.”
Arizona was held with out a point for almost eight minutes in a span from the 2:55 mark in the first half until 15:33 mark of the second half, while LSU scored 18 straight points during the stretch.
The Lady Tigers’ domination continued in the second half which they began with a 16-4 run. LSU’s bench contributed valuable minutes in the second half and 26 points for the game while holding Arizona’s bench to only four points. All 14 Lady Tigers played and all but three scored at least two points.
Seimone Augustus led the way for LSU with 18 points and contributed to the Lady Tigers’ 48 rebounds by collecting eight.
Temeka Johnson recorded a double-double scoring 14 points and 10 assists. Johnson also made 4 of 4 from the free throw line, gathered four rebounds and had three steals.
LSU also found its three-point game, hitting 41.2 percent on 7 of 17 from behind the arch. Scholanda Hoston scored 12 points, including two three pointers. Quianna Chaney collected all of her nine points on threes and Johnson added two more.
Dee-Dee Wheeler, the Wildcats’ leading scorer entering the game, led Arizona with 13 points, shooting 4 of 13 from the field. Shawntinice Polk added ten points and five rebounds while Danielle Adefeso grabbed 12 rebounds and scored seven points.
LSU advances the Regional Semifinal in Chattanooga to face Liberty on Saturday. 13th-seeded Liberty defeated the fifth-seeded DePaul 88-79 Tuesday night in College Park, Md.
GAME NOTES
- LSU advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament for the ninth time in school history and the third straight.
- Seimone Augustus recorded double figure points for the 59th time in her career.
- With her sixth point of the night, midway through the first half, Seimone Augustus passed Pokey Chatman for fifth on LSU’s career scoring list.
- Temeka Johnson collected her fourth double double of the season and the 18th of her career.
- First-seeded LSU improves to 31-2 on the season, marking the most wins in program history.
- LSU has compiled a 21-14 record in their 15 trips to the NCAA tournament, including the past seven in a row (1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005).
- LSU is now 18-1 in televised games this season.
- LSU improves to 3-1 all-time versus Arizona.
- With 18 points tonight, Augustus now ranks fifth on LSU’s all-time scoring list with 1,839 points, passing head coach Pokey Chatman (1,826).
- Sylvia Fowles recorded three blocks tonight and now is just one shy of tying Dee Dee Franklin for third on LSU’s single-season blocks list.
- Fowles just missed out on a double-double for the second straight game, as she has posted nine-point, nine-rebound performances in each of the tournament’s first two contests.
- LSU has now held nine opponents to less than 30 percent shooting this season.
- LSU’s has won its first two games of the NCAA Tournament by an average margin of 33.5 points.
Head Coach Pokey Chatman
(opening statement)
“I thought from the very first possession on defense we established ourselves with an entry to the post with a quick trap. I think Temeka was the one who secured the steal in transition and that sort of became the theme for the first half. It didn’t seem to matter if we rotated a bigger post player in there or a smaller post player. We did a great job of making Arizona shoot difficult shots. The ability to be so aggressive in the half court and defend without fouling is something we pride ourselves. I think the kids did a great job of carrying that out. More importantly, they picked up the paycheck at the end of the week and secured the rebound and got out in transition. When we are in transition and aggressive in the half court good things will happen. Offensively Arizona went man, 2-3 or 3-2, and it didn’t seem to bother us. We went a little triangle and two and as a coach that tells us they were mentally focused on the task at hand.”
(on Temeka’s ability to set the pace of the game)
“Obviously we look at Temeka for a lot of things. I thought it was interesting during the first possession when we went to trap in the post that she was the person who stepped down defensively to secure the steal and then led our break. That was a key for us all night. There are so many things that Temeka will do that don’t even show up in the stat sheet. That’s just from changing the offense when the defense changes its set. She sets the tone for everyone, Seimone being at the end of all those assists, just knowing who to get to ball to and when to keep us in our comfort zone. I think you got a taste of the normal Temeka tonight.”
(on if Temeka is stepping up this year as opposed to Seimone)
“I think that was probably a lot of outsiders making it that way. Seimone is the most talented player on the team, Temeka is the most valuable because she has the ball in her hand 85 percent of the time and is making the decision. They understand that Seimone can’t shoot without the ball.”
(on the importance of the other three starters in the game)
“I’m glad you asked that. Again of lot of these things won’t show up in the stat sheets. I remember many transition opportunities that we didn’t get a good shot or turned the basketball over which led to some fatigue and early substitutions. That is Wendlyn and Tillie playing to their strength which is their speed and their ability to move from zone or man-to-man. You would think they scored more points. They understand what is important for us to be successful. You can score points in a lot of ways that don’t mean the ball is going in the basket. They were huge throughout and it was good to see with the rotation.
(on if she grades the game)
“No. We just break it down into each phase of the game. Offensively, defensively, in-bounds defense. We may give an individual grade every now and then. Our standards are really high. We don’t have to go that route with this team.”
(on her assessment for the first-half of the game)
“First half, scale of 1-10, it was about an 8 1/2. I say that because there are so many things that are involved in the half-court defense. The focus is the post but the post defense is a team thing Seimone had alluded to it in her answer in not letting the ball get into the post. They were really, really close, about an 8 1/2 for the first 20 minutes.”
(on shutting down Dee-Dee Wheeler)
“Scholanda Hoston did an excellent job early. She is 5-10 and is able to give someone with quickness a little bit of space. We talked to her about making her take difficult shots and not worry about shutting her down. I thought she did an excellent job. Even when Scholanda came out of the game, Temeka did an excellent job trying to stop her and just wreaking havoc. She was huge tonight.”
(on if she has run into Tennessee in her time here)
“Not at all. I haven’t seen Tennessee, honestly. Maybe that is set up at the time. Maybe the powers that be set it up as such. I saw them leaving Tennessee Grill, crossing the street one day. I’m saying that to be funny. It’s just one of those things. You just don’t think about it really. It’s a good problem if we are meeting Tennessee at any point of time in the season. It means we are playing good basketball”.
(on her thoughts of Pat Summitt potentially breaking Dean Smith’s record tonight)
“I’m glad I’m in the building to have the opportunity to possibly witness that. So many people pick up the newspaper or tune into the game because it is monumental. I’ve got 17- 8-19 years of knowing Pat Summitt from afar and close up. I think it’s tremendous.”
(on if it was as close to a perfect game that they have played all year)
“I think so. It was closer than all of the rest of the games that we play. There is still room for us to get better. For the most part, we put some things together and executed for about 30-35 minutes of basketball.”
(on being a senior and that it is her last run in the tournament)
“Me being a senior this is it. There is no time to leave anything, no turning back. I have to go out and give 100 percent and do the best to lead my teammates the best that I can.”
(on the comparisons from this game to the Georgia game)
“We just wanted to come out and play well. We had a rough against Stetson so we just wanted to come out and not start off slow like we did against them. We came out of the blocks pretty strong. Most of it starts with me, I think I bring the energy and it trickles down throughout the rest of my teammates.”
(on the play of Wendlyn Jones, Scholonda and Tillie Willis the first few minutes)
“Wendlyn and Tillie, that was the main thing for them. The main thing was for them to run the floor, play good post defense and that’s what they did. Scholonda was good defensively and we needed that. She also ran the floor and got some open looks at well. I’m very pleased with it.
(on if you’ve send Tennessee and what it has been like playing in their gym.)
“We’ve seem the coming in and out of practices. For me I want to say it’s just a gym but you can’t really say that with all of the orange. We didn’t come up here worrying about playing in Tennessee’s gym. We just worried about Stetson when we first got here and then Arizona after that. For us, it’s just a site. We were happy to get here and now we are moving on”.
(on if Arizona’s band playing Rocky Top affected the team)
Not really. I guess it didn’t’ really work as well as Arizona hoped it did. We don’t feed into all that stuff. We were going to come out like that any other time.”
(on if she feels she played a perfect game)
“I’m always hard on myself. There are probably a lot of things when I go back and think about that I could have done better to help my teammates out. I don’t really know right now, I am just trying to enjoy the moment.”
(on the defensive effort)
“I think it just shows how well of a defensive team we really can be when it put it all together. That’s what we pride ourselves on. Whenever we execute well on defense, we normally have good executions on offense. That’s where it all starts. If you bring defense then everything else falls into place.”
(on Temeka having a perfect night shooting from the floor)
“I don’t know anybody that went perfect from the floor. That just shows what type of player she is. At any given moment she can drop 14 and 10. She’s been consistent with it. For her to have a perfect game adds to her accolades on the season from all year long.”
(on the defensive effort)
“I think every time we go out, we want to try to make the other team’s offense not even have a chance to run their offense. Tonight, we kind of frustrated Arizona by our post players affecting their post players and by being out running and trying to fatigue them early. They looked inside most of the time for their post players. I think our post perimeter players did an excellent job defending them. I think our perimeter players put a tremendous amount of pressure on their players which didn’t allow them to run their offense.”