BATON ROUGE — Seimone Augustus scored her 2,000th career point late in the second half to highlight an in-state victory for the No. 3 LSU women’s basketball team over New Orleans, 72-41, on Monday evening in the Maravich Center.
Augustus, who became the fourth player in LSU women’s basketball history to accomplish the feat, led LSU (5-0) with 23 points on 9-of-12 shooting. She added six rebounds and made all five free throw attempts in only 25 minutes of play.
“It means a lot to me, but it means more to get a win,” Augustus said of her milestone. “I never expected to do something like this so fast. It says a lot about my teammates.”
The Lady Tigers scored the games first 12 points of the game in four minutes to take control and never looked back.
“We came out and executed well, but then it went away,” LSU head coach Pokey Chatman said. “I did not think the energy was bad, but the execution was not always there.”
LSU had not played a game since Nov. 26, a 15 day lay-off.
LSU Career Points Top 10
Player
G
Points
Avg
1. Joyce Walker, 80-84
117
2,906
24.8
2. Julie Gross, 76-80
131
2,488
18.9
3. Cornelia Gayden, 91-95
110
2,451
22.3
4. Seimone Augustus, 02-
110
2,015
18.3
5. Maree Jackson, 76-78
70
1,852
26.4
6. Pokey Chatman, 87-91
120
1,826
15.2
7. Katrina Hibbert, 96-00
124
1,695
13.7
8. Marie Ferdinand, 97-01
120
1,648
13.7
9. Alisha Jones, 83-87
101
1,597
15.8
10. Madeline Doucet, 81-95
106
1,533
14.5
Sophomore center Sylvia Fowles had 15 points and a team-high seven rebounds, while sophomore guard Quianna Chaney added 12 points. The Lady Tigers finished 26 of 56 from the field for 46.4 percent.
LSU won the game on the defensive side of the court, pressing the Privateers throughout the first half and forcing 28 turnovers in the contest and scoring 30 points off of the UNO mistakes.
The Lady Tigers tallied 21 steals.
New Orleans (2-5) was led by Jada Frazier, who came off the bench to score 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting. Forward Talishia Young added eight points and eight rebounds.
The Privateers finished 16 of 46 from the field for 34.8 percent.
LSU returns to action for a difficult road swing against No. 4 Ohio State in Columbus on Thursday, Dec. 15, before taking on Kentucky in its Southeastern Conference opener in Lexington on Sunday, Dec.18.
The Lady Tigers and Buckeyes will be broadcast on ESPN2 at 6:30 p.m. CST, while LSU will face the Lady Wildcats on SEC-TV at noon CST. Both games can be heard live on the LSU Sports Radio Network (107.3 FM in Baton Rouge) and in the Geaux Zone on LSUsports.net.
New Orleans vs LSU
12/12/05 7 p.m. at Baton Rouge, La. (Maravich Center)
At Baton Rouge, La. (Maravich Center)
LSU 72, NEW ORLEANS 41
NEW ORLEANS (2-5)
FRAZIER, Jada 4-8 0-1 12; YOUNG, Talishia 4-6 0-1 8; ENGLISH, Le’Della 2-7 2-2 7; JOHNSON, Cookie 2-6 0-1 4; SENTIMORE, Ashley 1-8 1-2 3; KASSABIAN, Megan 1-2 0-0 3; WILLIAMS, Andrea 1-2 0-0 2; ALEXANDER, Ashley 1-4 0-0 2; BLEDSOE, Kori 0-1 0-0 0; CHAIN, Vanessa 0-0 0-0 0; ROGERS, Smooch 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 16-46 3-7 41.
LSU (5-0)
AUGUSTUS, Seimone 9-12 5-5 23; FOWLES, Sylvia 6-7 3-4 15; CHANEY, Quianna 5-11 0-0 12; HOSTON, Scholanda 1-6 1-3 4; LeBLANC, RaShonta 1-2 2-2 4; WILLIAMS, Florence 1-4 0-0 3; THOMAS, Ashley 0-3 3-6 3; MITCHELL, Khalilah 1-3 1-1 3; WHITFIELD, Marian 1-2 0-0 2; MORRIS, Kristen 1-3 0-0 2; WHITE, Erica 0-3 1-2 1. Totals 26-56 16-23 72.
New Orleans………………. 18 23 – 41
LSU……………………… 38 34 – 72
3-point goals-New Orleans 6-15 (FRAZIER, Jada 4-6; ENGLISH, Le’Della 1-5; KASSABIAN, Megan 1-1; JOHNSON, Cookie 0-3), LSU 4-13 (CHANEY, Quianna 2-6; WILLIAMS, Florence 1-1; HOSTON, Scholanda 1-6). Fouled out–New Orleans-None, LSU-None. Rebounds-New Orleans 30 (YOUNG, Talishia 8), LSU 35 (FOWLES, Sylvia 7). Assists-New Orleans 10 (BLEDSOE, Kori 3; JOHNSON, Cookie 3; ENGLISH, Le’Della 3), LSU 17 (CHANEY, Quianna 4; HOSTON, Scholanda 4; WHITE, Erica 4). Total fouls-New Orleans 17, LSU 12. A-4192
GAME NOTES
LSU’s Seimone Augustus became the fourth player in the program’s history to reach 2,000 points in a career. The senior, playing in her 110th game, hit a jumper with 5:08 left in the first half to give her 2,001 points.
Augustus recorded her 67th straight double figure scoring game with her 23 points. She also reached at least 20 points for the 49th time.
Sylvia Fowles scored in double figures for the eighth straight game.
LSU improved to 5-0 for the third time in the last four seasons.
The Lady Tigers extended their home court win streak to 17 straight games and their non-conference home court win streak to 28 straight.
LSU HEAD COACH POKEY CHATMAN
Opening Statement…
“I thought it looked like we had a couple weeks off for a majority of the time. Some of those things, in my opinion, aren’t related to a layoff. It’s a matter of executing from a time out to the floor. It’s a matter of paying attention to detail, and as a unit that’s obviously something coaches want their team to continue to get better and better at as the year goes on, especially the slate that we have ahead of us in terms of Ohio State and then getting into conference play. Yes, it was a win, and you always find positives and I don’t like those things to go unnoticed. Ashley Thomas did a great job. She has an uncanny ability to always play the same in terms of her intensity and execution. I thought Kristen Morris did some good things defensively. As a unit, our level of execution has to get a lot better.”
On getting out in front early…
“We came out in the game and quickly put 11 points on the board. We got into the paint and got Sylvia (Fowles) some touches. And then for about a four-minute span we got away from that. That wasn’t something that was taken away from us. Therein lies the discipline to get what you need to get done. That’s something that we’re going to correct and keep hounding at.”
On having only 11 turnovers in the game…
“I don’t know that a coach is ever pleased with any amount of turnovers, but the big thing is to go and assess where those turnovers occurred. You don’t ever like the turnovers that are against the zone, but 11 is not a high number and I am pleased with that.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
On reaching 2,000 career points…
“I am happier to get a win than to get my 2,000th career point. It means a lot to get it. It really is a big deal to me. It happened so fast I didn’t expect it. It just seems like I just scored my 1,000th point and now I am at 2,000. It just shows a lot about my teammates and how they have helped me reach 2,000 points.”
On her remaining goals…
“I have one, a national championship. I think we have accomplished everything else. A SEC tournament, SEC regular season and other tournaments.”
On playing non-conference games…
“I think it’s good, because once you get into SEC play you are going to have a lot of opponents that may not be ranked but will give you a run for your money.”
On the upcoming road schedule…
“We are excited. Practice has been pretty tough. We are just excited to be playing again. Now we have two tough games on the road and we are going to have to test our heart, power, confidence and will because each one of those games is going to be very tough.”
On the team’s performance…
“I think we came out ready to play. We started out with an 11-0 run. I think we were enthused and it showed tonight.”
UNO HEAD COACH AMY CHAMPION
Opening Statement…
“With a young basketball team we always emphasize, and of course with this team all year long, emphasize the intensity level has to be high all the time. These young kids tend to lapse a little bit and not play hard all the time. They did come out to a start, but again we are a young basketball team and what we have to do is keep every single possession and chip away one possession at a time. I was real proud of our basketball team tonight. There were a couple of areas where we wanted to win the little successes. One of them was in rebounds. They average 40 something rebounds a game, and we held them to 35. To us that’s an accomplishment. The scoring situation, they average a little over 80 points a game. We held them to 72. For us, we wanted to at least have 30 rebounds, and we did. There are some things that we really have to celebrate here, even though it’s a young basketball team and a loss is a loss. Those little successes are what we consider.”