BATON ROUGE — After losing 3-of-4 games to Top 12 teams in the past two weeks, the No. 7 LSU women’s basketball team polished its game and bruised Alabama, 70-27, en route to a first-round bye in this week’s SEC Tournament.
LSU (24-6, 10-4 SEC) finished the season in a third-place tie in the SEC with Vanderbilt, but will be the No. 4 seed in the tournament after losing the head-to-head match-up on Feb. 22.
By holding Alabama to the lowest point total by an SEC team in school history, the Lady Tigers earned the right to take Thursday’s first round off after getting help from Auburn. The previous school record for defensive performance in conference play was on Feb. 22, 1986, when LSU beat Florida, 69-34, at the Assembly Center.
Auburn defeated Ole Miss, 64-58, in Oxford, Miss., to drop the Lady Rebels to 9-5 in conference play.
Alabama (10-19, 0-14 SEC) finished league play — and 2007 — winless. The Tide will play Ole Miss on Thursday in the SEC Tournament’s first round.
“This victory had a lot to do with energy and emotion,” LSU head coach Pokey Chatman said. “It was nice to see us couple that to some execution. I thought it was evident from the very beginning; it was evident when we had several substitutions and it was evident when we had different combinations of people in the game. That is always good to see because that is related to what we did not do in previous games.”
LSU’s Sylvia Fowles became the first player in league history to post double doubles in each of the 14 conference games. The 6-6 center did so in the first half today, with 10 points and 10 rebounds to give the Lady Tigers a 46-12 lead at the half.
Fowles finished with 12 points and 14 rebounds in 17 minutes, while freshman Porsha Phillips added 12 points, four rebounds, two blocks and two assists. Freshman Allison Hightower had nine points in nine minutes, as LSU emptied the bench early. No Lady Tiger played more than 24 minutes.
Point guard Erica White had seven assists, all in the first half.
Alabama, which made only eight field goals on 47 attempts (17 percent), had 29 turnovers that led to 26 Lady Tigers points. LSU earned 16 of those turnovers on steals.
The Tide made 9-of-10 free throws.
No Alabama player managed double figures scoring, as forward Navonda Moore scored eight points and Nikki Davis added five.
Leading 7-5, the Lady Tigers opened a 29-point lead after a 32-5 run midway through the first half. LSU never looked back and led 46-12 at the half.
With its reserves playing most of the second half, Alabama never got closer than 35.
GAME NOTES
– Sylvia Fowles became the first player in SEC history to record a double double in all 14 league games with her 12 points and 14 rebounds today.
– Fowles collected her 17th straight double double today. It was also her 23rd of the season and 68th of her career.
– Porsha Phillips tied her career ?high with 12 points.
– Alabama’s 27 points are the fewest allowed by LSU in a SEC game, topping the previous mark of 34 by Florida on Feb. 22, 1986.
– LSU collected 10 wins in SEC play for the fifth straight year and the seventh time overall.
LSU HEAD COACH POKEY CHATMAN
Opening Statement…
“I am focused on the fact that some of our game goals coming in, obviously had a lot to do with principles of basketball and play, but also had a lot to do with energy and emotion. It was nice to see us couple that to some execution. I thought it was evident from the very beginning; it was evident when we had several substitutions and it was evident when we had different combinations of people in the game. That is always good to see because that is related to what we did not do in previous games, but we were also able to extend some things that we had success with against Alabama early on in the year in terms of our zone offense and our ability to pressure them defensively. We held them to 45 points at their own place and we wanted to extend that and I thought we did an excellent job defensively.”
On the defensive effort…
“When you look at the minutes played by every player it shows that several players participated in that defensive scheme, it is not just your top seven or eight. You look at the number of turnovers that we forced, 29, you look at the number of blocked shots and steals, and on top of that we were able to keep our game clean and share the basketball with 22 assists, and several players participated in that. A lot of things that we were looking to gain we gained and then some with other players playing extended minutes.”
On getting a bye Thursday night in the SEC tournament…
“The remarkable thing about this team and these kids is that they are tired and they don’t even know it, so that is on us to make sure we are aware of that. You take it one day at a time so it does sound really nice, instead of saying the possibility of four games, the possibility of just three sounds really nice. It is not the scenario we wanted to play out in terms of waiting and not having the control of things, but it happened, it’s here, it is in front of us and we need to accept it and move on.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
Forward Porsha Phillips
On the play of the team today …
“We came out ready and played with a lot of intensity tonight, and we just have to come out playing like this every game and we’ll have a great SEC tournament.”
Center Sylvia Fowles
On breaking the SEC record for double-doubles in all SEC games …
“It feels good to break records, just to be able to break that record. But I give credit to my teammates for getting me the ball.”
On the strong start to the game …
“That was great for us, coming out doing what we have to do and doing what we are capable of. We knew we were going to come out with a bang. We were focused, and our last few practices have been great. So we knew we were going to come out focused and ready to play.”
ALABAMA HEAD COACH STEPHANY SMITH QUOTES
Opening statement…
“LSU is a great basketball team and you can always count on their athleticism, defense and their ability to score in transition. However, when they start knocking down shots from the perimeter right out of the gate it pretty much destroys your scout preparation. Anybody can see the difference between the make up of each team. We don’t stack up well against LSU.”
On what she said to the team at halftime with such a big deficit…
“Unfortunately, that has been the scenario for our team throughout SEC play. We are winless in the SEC. Being that I am the head coach and leader, I have had to focus on the journey and the process and not get caught up in each possession. That is a very difficult thing for me to do. I am use to having a lot of success. It is a hard pill to swallow to have to try to ignore the scoreboard and just play the game that you love. Unfortunately, it is the approach we have taken on many times during this season.”