BATON ROUGE — LSU’s eighth-ranked women’s basketball team used a full-squad effort to get the best of the University of New Orleans on Sunday, winning its first game back in the Maravich Center since Nov. 21, 73-46.
LSU (10-3), playing for the second time without All-America center Sylvia Fowles, got a double double from reserve forward Kristen Morris for the first time in her career.
“When you consider everything, and I try not to bring this up too much, but we won without Sylvia Fowles by 73-46,” LSU head coach Van Chancellor said. “I thought it was a great game for us. We only had five turnovers, which is unbelievable, had 25 assists and forced 31 turnovers. Kristin Morris played really well for us.”
The Lady Tigers shot 42.3 percent (30 of 71) with 25 assists and only five turnovers, a school record.
Along with Morris’ 11 points and 10 rebounds, 10 of LSU’s 11 players scored while only one played more than 25 minutes.
Guard Quianna Chaney led LSU with 14 points, while guard RaShonta LeBlanc added 12 points. Starting point guard Erica White dished out a season-high seven assists.
Center Mesha Williams, who earned her first career start in place of Fowles, had nine points on 4-of-6 shooting in 17 minutes.
UNO (7-5) was led by Le’Della English who scored 15 points. Reserve guard had 10 points and six rebounds.
The Privateers shot only 39.6 percent from the field (19 of 48) and committed 31 turnovers that led to 36 Lady Tigers’ points.
UNO’s 18 first-half turnovers led to 21 points for the Lady Tigers, who led 40-24 at the break.
LeBlanc scored seven points as LSU answered an opening bucket by UNO with a 13-0 run to open an 11-point lead in the first four minutes.
With nine of 11 dressed players scoring, LSU led by as many as 18 on two occasions in the first half despite only 40-percent shooting (16 of 40).
Meanwhile, UNO shot 55.6 percent in the half but had as many turnovers as field goal attempts (18).
UNO narrowed the gap to 13 early in the second half, but got no closer.
The final score was the largest margin.
LSU returns to action after the New Year, traveling to face Florida State on Jan. 3.
GAME NOTES
Mesha Williams made her first career start today in place of the injured Sylvia Fowles. Williams finished the game with a season-high nine points and three rebounds.
RaShonta LeBlanc scored in double figures for the 11th time in her career and the third time this season with a season-high 12 points today.
Quianna Chaney scored in double figures for the 10th time this season and the 49th time of her career with 14 points today. The senior is now just 13 points away from 1,000 for her career.
Kristen Morris scored a season-high 11 points to go with a career-high 10 rebounds. It was her second double figure scoring game of her career and her first career double double.
The victory was LSU’s 694th as a program. The Lady Tigers now need six more wins to reach the milestone.
LSU tied a school record for fewest turnovers in a game with five. LSU also had five turnovers in a loss to Tennessee on Feb. 23, 2003.
LSU HEAD COACH VAN CHANCELLOR QUOTES
Opening statement…
“When you consider everything, and I try not to bring this up too much, but we won without Sylvia Fowles by 73-46. We played four backup players more than 16 minutes each and another one for 10 minutes. I thought it was a great game for us. We only had five turnovers, which is unbelievable, had 25 assists and forced 31 turnovers. Kristin Morris played really good for us. She had 11 points and 10 rebounds, that was outstanding.”
On how he thought the game started…
“I thought we opened up the game with great Lady Tiger defense. They scored the first basket and after that our pressure really caused them some problems.”
On how it is playing without C Sylvia Fowles…
“We don’t mention her very much to our team. We don’t mention that we don’t have her. We just come out and play. We played a small lineup against Middle Tennessee and came out with a big line up today because they have a true post player. We might run a little different offense to where we are more guard oriented to shoot the ball. With Sylvia we were more inside. We don’t say that to the players, it just might affect the plays I call.”
“I found out in the WNBA that when you have an injured played, it takes about three games to get it back. When we went small ball (against Middle Tennessee) we didn’t have our out of bonds plays down and we just had to play small ball, we had no other choice. It just takes a while when you lose a player. If you are going to lose a player for a long time, you would rather lose her in October then later in the season.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
Guard RaShonta LeBlanc
On LSU securing the lead…
“We ran a good offense and got good shots. That is really all we did.”
On if Coach Van Chancellor‘s coaching style has changed now that Sylvia is out…
“(Coach Van Chancellor‘s) coaching style has not really changed. With Sylvia (Fowles) here, he told us we had to take more perimeter shots to open it up for her and now that she is gone we have to take them even more.”
On how Coach Van Chancellor wants them to score…
“I just think Coach (Van Chancellor) wants us to score, whatever that way may be as long as the ball goes in the basket.”
Guard Quianna Chaney
On the new lineup…
“No matter who you put out there, we play with each other in practice every day and we have chemistry.”
On if the guards’ role in putting up points…
“It’s not just the guards. We have other people that can step up like Mesha Williams did tonight. Everyone can step up and pitch in.”
Center Mesha Williams
On playing in the absence of Sylvia Fowles…
“I’m just trying to step up because I have some big shoes to fill.”
On how she feels about playing…
“I’m confident. I’m confident in playing a lot of minutes and I’m going to do what I can to help my team out.”
UNO HEAD COACH AMY CHAMPION
Opening statement…
“We never really found any type of rhythm, even in the first half. We talked about transition; we talked about rebounding. Obviously, we met the rebounding goal that we set forth for ourselves in the first part of the game. We ended up outrebounding them. We talked about ball possession, and this is probably one of the worst performances from us from an offensive standpoint in a long time.”
On the turnovers…
“LSU is a great defensive team. They hold opponents to a low percentage and low number of points. They are an aggressive, man defensive team. They have good size, speed and quickness. Again, we faced Texas A&M in the early part of December, the same type of caliber team, and we made adjustments. Tonight, we didn’t make adjustments to it. I think our kids, from the start, were a little intimidated. I don’t think we played with confidence. I don’t think we played with any kind of rhythm or togetherness. This was our worst offensive performance all year.”
On LSU going with a bigger lineup today…
“I knew that he was probably going to start two post (players) against us because that’s what we start, but Talishia (Young) is easy to defend. She’s thin and not a really strong, physical post player. She would rather face the basket. I think they took her out of the game early. They bodied her out and kept her off the boards. They didn’t allow her to score, and I think mentally it got to her. It really rattled her from the start.”