BATON ROUGE — Seimone Augustus‘ 26 points led the second-ranked LSU women’s basketball team to a 64-42 victory over Arkansas on Sunday afternoon in front of a sold-out Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
LSU (23-2, 11-1 SEC) moved on game closer to clinching a second straight Southeastern Conference regular season title, holding onto a one-game lead over Tennessee with two games left.
Arkansas (13-12, 5-7 SEC) jumped out to an early 7-2 lead, but LSU proceeded to rattle off a 17-0 run to take a commanding 19-7 lead with 5:56 left in the first half.
The Lady Tigers led 27-14 at the break and opened the second half on an 11-2 run to lead 38-16 with 16:43 left to play. The Lady Razorbacks never got any closer than 18 points the rest of the game.
“I’m going to start with the positive,” LSU head coach Pokey Chatman said. “It’s a win. That is the short list.”
LSU’s defense held Arkansas to 26.9 shooting percentage and no Lady Razorbacks reached double figures in scoring. Three players had six points to lead Arkansas, while Kristin Moore had five points and nine rebounds.
“We need to correct our ability to take care of the basketball,” Chatman added. “We shot 55 percent, but did not give ourselves enough opportunities. That is something we are going to work on.”
LSU shot 54.5 percent from the floor and grabbed 45 rebounds, but committed a season-high 23 turnovers. Arkansas had 31 rebounds and 15 steals.
Augustus, a senior from Baton Rouge, moved into third-place on LSU’s career scoring list with her game-high 26 points and slide into 10th-place on the Southeastern Conference list.
Sylvia Fowles added eight points and nine rebounds, while Florence Williams eight points and five boards off the bench.
The Lady Tigers will travel to Tuscaloosa on Thursday to play Alabama at 7 p.m. CST at Coleman Coliseum. LSU will enter the game with a chance to claim the SEC regular season title.
LSU HEAD COACH POKEY CHATMAN
Opening statement…
“There are several places I could start, so I’ll start with the positive. It’s a win. That’s a short list. We need to get right into things that we need to correct as a team — our ability to take care of the basketball related to LSU’s role of not taking care of the basketball. We didn’t do a good job there two games ago, at Florida we had 22 (turnovers) and this evening we had 23. That’s unacceptable. We shot 55 percent from the field, but we’re just not giving ourselves enough opportunities to score the basketball. That’s something we’re going to work on. We’re going to work tomorrow at practice, and we’re going to clean up those areas we’ve basically been good in except for the last games out.”
On how frustrating the beginning of the game was…
“I was extremely frustrated. (The team) is very well aware of what they’re capable of doing because they’ve done it night in and night out. It’s a matter of focusing and channeling that energy and making every possession your masterpiece. And that was frustrating because we were slow in doing that and we didn’t come close to it.”
On how Seimone Augustus was able to spark the team…
“It’s team offense. Those looks weren’t there for Seimone in the first four and a half minutes because the other four players weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing. When you look at the stat sheet, I know it’s hard to understand this is team offense when one player has 26 points and no one else is in double digits. Arkansas is aggressive, they’re fast, and when we would reverse the basketball, move the basketball and create some close-out opportunities, Seimone was able to penetrate and get into some gaps. The challenge is to do that initially, to do that early, to do it in the middle and to do it late. That’s the areas we have to clean up.
On Florence Williams‘ performance…
“I thought Florence Williams was locked in defensively. She was ready to trap ball screens and loosen, she ran the floor well in transition which really would drag the defense down and open some things up on the perimeter. I thought she was locked in early and often.”
On the first-half…
“I looked for my drive more, I took the opportunity to drive to the goal to at least create a tough situation for their defense because our offense wasn’t as effective today. We weren’t screening as much like we should have, and it was kind of tough to give Sylvia (Fowles) the ball because they were kind of stepping back and giving help side on her. It just opened it up more for me to drive to the basket.”
On her increased intensity in the first half…
“I really just took what my defense gave me. She (Adrienne Bush) was very reactive to my shot fake and she got off her feet a couple of times and she took my jab step a couple of times too. So I really just took what she gave me. She gave me the drive a lot, a lot of opportunities to drive it into the paint.”
On the team’s slow start in the game…
“Everybody is not always going to come out at the top, intense and everything. And that is the job for me and the other captain, Scholanda (Hoston) and the other senior Flo (Williams) to come out and give energy. They look to us for momentum and everything and I just feel that I had to come out and show a little emotion and it kind of got them fired up. If you saw Erica (White) she got fired up, and then you had other players who actually started to come around and start to play with energy in their game.”
On after todays game, becoming the third leading scorer in LSU history…
“It feels great. I talked to Cornelia (Gayden), she calls me baby tiger and she is the big tiger, and I talked to her before the game and I told her, “I’m coming to get you, I’m coming to get you on the all time leading scorers list”, and she said that records are made to be broken, and it was appropriate and I am very proud that I am in good company with her, Joyce Walked and Julie Gross.”
ARKANSAS HEAD COACH SUSIE GARDNER QUOTES
On LSU’s defense…
“They are known for their offense but they played very good defense. I was very pleased at halftime with our defense, when you hold LSU to 27 points at halftime you feel pretty good. But, at the same time we only scored 14 points and that was a big part on the game.”
On Seimone Augustus…
“She was on her game tonight and pretty much unstoppable. I compare Seimone to J.J. Redick. Everybody is going to play Seimone and J.J. with their best defense and best defender but they are still going to score their points.”
“A great player is going to take a team on their shoulders when things aren’t going exactly right for the rest of the team. She doesn’t always have to take over a game but today she wanted to take over and she did.”