BATON ROUGE — LSU’s third-ranked women’s basketball team used a 22-4 run in the first eight minutes of the second half to more than double its 16-points halftime lead and easily defeat Tulane, 89-60, on Tuesday night in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
LSU (8-0) looks forward to an eight-day holiday break and next takes on 11th-ranked Michigan State on Dec. 28 at home with a now 19-game home court winning streak on the line.
“The best thing about tonight’s performance is the fact that we are 8-0,” LSU head coach Pokey Chatman said. ‘There are several things that we can come back in the morning and work on. That is the standard that this particular team has set for themselves.”
The Lady Tigers were led by senior Seimone Augustus, who overcame a 1-for-6 start to score 20 points on 7-of-15 shooting. The reigning National Player of the Year added five rebounds and made all six free throw attempts. Center Sylvia Fowles had 19 points and 10 rebounds, while forward Ashley Thomas came off the bench to score 11.
Starting point guard RaShonta LeBlanc paced LSU with four points, four assists, four steals and three rebounds in 23 minutes.
LSU out-rebounded the Green Wave, 45-31, and dominated the paint with 48 points.
Tulane (4-2), which returned to the state on Sunday to play its first home game since Hurricane Katrina, shot 40.7 percent from the field and committed 23 turnovers in defeat. LSU scored 29 points of the mistakes.
“Overall I was not very pleased with the defensive energy early in the game,” Chatman added. “But, it got better in spurts as the game went along.”
Reserve guard Sasha Staidum led the Green Wave with 13 points, while forward Jennifer Sands had 11 and Alendra Brown had 10.
Tulane made only 3-of-16 three-point attempts.
Leading by only five with 6:20 to play in the first half, LSU went on an 8-0 run in the next three-plus minutes and extended the advantage to 43-27 at the half.
LSU’s pressure defense provided by its starting five keyed the 22-4 run early in the half. The remainder of the contest was played by at least three LSU reserve, as Tulane got no closer than 29.
After the eight days off, LSU will play three home games in a span of five days in the Maravich Center, taking on the Lady Spartans (Dec. 28, 7 p.m. CST), South Florida (Dec. 30, 2 p.m.) and North Carolina A&T (Jan. 1, 1 p.m.).
Tulane vs LSU
12/20/05 7 p.m. at Baton Rouge, La. (Maravich Center)
At Baton Rouge, La. (Maravich Center)
LSU 89, TULANE 60
TULANE (4-2)
STAIDUM, Sasha 5-13 3-4 13; SANDS, Jennifer 5-8 1-1 11; BROWN, Alendra 5-6 0-3 10; LUCKHURST, Nikki 3-11 0-0 9; VALICEVIC, Megan 2-4 4-4 8; BARNES, Kendra 1-4 2-2 4; LANGFORD, Ashley 1-1 1-2 3; MONTAGNINO, Jami 0-6 2-2 2; PHILPOTS, Dominique 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 22-54 13-18 60.
LSU (8-0)
AUGUSTUS, Seimone 7-15 6-6 20; FOWLES, Sylvia 9-15 1-2 19; THOMAS, Ashley 3-7 5-7 11; HOSTON, Scholanda 2-5 2-2 8; MORRIS, Kristen 2-2 4-7 8; WHITE, Erica 3-4 1-1 7; WILLIAMS, Florence 2-6 2-2 6; CHANEY, Quianna 3-10 0-1 6; LeBLANC, RaShonta 2-4 0-0 4; WHITFIELD, Marian 0-4 0-0 0; MITCHELL, Khalilah 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 33-72 21-28 89.
Tulane…………………… 27 33 – 60
LSU……………………… 43 46 – 89
3-point goals-Tulane 3-16 (LUCKHURST, Nikki 3-9; SANDS, Jennifer 0-1; MONTAGNINI, Jami 0-6), LSU 2-8 (HOSTON, Scholanda 2-4; CHANEY, Quianna 0-4). Fouled out–Tulane-LUCKHURST, Nikki, LSU-None. Rebounds-Tulane 31 (BROWN, Alendra 6), LSU 45 (FOWLES, Sylvia 10). Assists-Tulane 13 (LANGFORD, Ashley 5), LSU 15 (WILLIAMS, Florence 4; LeBLANC, RaShonta 4). Total fouls-Tulane 22, LSU 15. A-2328
GAME NOTES
Pokey Chatman, Seimone Augustus and Sylvia Fowles were honored before the game for their contributions to Team USA’s World University Games gold medal team this past summer.
Augustus was also presented a game ball prior to the contest commemorating her 2,000 career points. She reached the milestone in LSU’s last home game against New Orleans.
Augustus scored in double figures for the 70th straight game with 20 points. Her total was also her 52nd time to score at least 20 points in her career.
Sylvia Fowles collected her fourth double double of the season and 16th of her career with 19 points and 10 rebounds.
LSU extended its home court winning streak to 19 straight, the sixth longest active streak in the nation. The Lady Tigers have also won 29 straight non-conference home games and 63 straight games when scoring at least 75 points.
LSU HEAD COACH POKEY CHATMAN
Opening Statement…
“The best thing about tonight’s performance is the fact that we’re 8-0, and we’ll leave it at that. There are several things that we can come back in the morning and work on, and that’s the standard that this particular team has set for themselves. I wasn’t particularly pleased with the defensive energy early on, and it’s something that got better in spurts. They’ve shown that they can do it over a longer period of time, and I have the utmost confidence that we will get it back to there. But overall, no one’s ever not going to be pleased with a victory. We’re 8-0, but understand we have a long way to go, and we’ll get back to work at 8 in the morning.”
On what Sylvia’s done to get better…
“It’s probably hard for Sylvia to answer because it’s just her nature to want to get better. When you bring that hunger and that drive, it’s a coach’s dream because she constantly wants to improve and not let her teammates down and not let the coaching staff down. And Sylvia’s always focused. She brings that every day, and if she continues to do that she will be the most dominant player in the paint.”
TULANE HEAD COACH LISA STOCKTON
Opening statement…
“The one thing to say to sum up the game is that LSU’s domination of the boards, especially their offensive rebounds, really got them the big lead and kept them in there. We were battling with them for a while, and then when they got loose on the offensive glass, they really broke it open.”
On being able to stay close to LSU for a while…
“We were right in there, somewhere around seven to 10 points. We were right in there and then all of a sudden it broke open. They were put backs, they were fouls in the paint, just second chance opportunities. Going in, we knew that’s something we had to stop, but we just didn’t do a very good job of it.”
On limiting LSU’s easy transition baskets…
“Overall this season we’ve shot the ball very well, so we felt that if we could shoot our normal percentage we were going to make enough to where we could drop back and stop some easy baskets. But giving a team of that quality that many looks at the basket, you can’t stay in there with them.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES…
Forward Seimone Augustus
On Sylvia’s Fowles performance tonight…
“That’s just her presence. In any situation when we feel we haven’t run our offense effectively, we can always look for Sylvia to get a post touch or clean up on the boards. That’s what she did tonight until we started running the offense the way we should have.”
On driving to the basket…
“We wanted to get paint touches. My jumpers weren’t falling so that was even more reason for me to penetrate to create for the outside players to get some baskets as well as Sylvia to get some inside baskets.”
On whether the recent road trip was hard on the team…
“I think we came out flat and sluggish. We didn’t have any energy or intensity. We just came out with the flow of the game. I think Tulane came out and set the tempo of the game. They ran their offense effectively, and were doing some of things we weren’t doing on the other end of the court. When you come out like that, you can expect your opponent to come out and have energy and come after you and that’s what they did tonight.”