BATON ROUGE — Junior guard Allison Hightower scored a career-high 19 points and added seven rebounds to pace the LSU women’s basketball team to a 63-47 win over Tulane on Monday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Lady Tigers (1-1) recorded their first victory of the season and began a stretch of four games in eight days. LSU faces a quick turnaround before it welcomes 25th-ranked Xavier (Ohio) to the Maravich Center at 7 p.m. CST Wednesday.
Tulane (1-3) dropped its third straight game after opening the season with a win against Illinois State in the Preseason WNIT. The Lady Tigers held the Green Wave to 35 percent shooting (17-of-48) while forcing 21 turnovers and 12 steals. LSU has won seven consecutive games against Tulane dating back to 2000.
“I’m glad that we got the win today,” LSU head coach Van Chancellor said. “I thought our defense for the first 33 minutes was really good. It reminded me of the LSU defense last year. We got plenty of players in the game and that’s another plus. I thought (Allison) Hightower was outstanding.”
Hightower, a preseason first-team All-SEC selection, enjoyed her best night as a Lady Tiger, finishing 8-of-18 from the field while tallying three steals and three assists. Thirteen of Hightower’s 19 points came in the first half that saw LSU take a 32-18 lead into the locker room.
LSU trailed 10-7 at the 14:45 mark before putting together a 25-8 run to close the first half. Andrea Kelly drained the Lady Tigers’ first 3-pointer of the season, and Hightower added one from behind the arc two minutes later that gave the Lady Tigers a 19-14 lead.
Courtney Jones put a punctuation on her seven-point first half when she buried a 3-pointer on an assist from Destini Hughes with 0:06 to go. Jones was one of three Lady Tiger freshmen to start, a first for the program since Feb. 27, 1993 at Mississippi State.
“I had never started very many freshmen in my whole career or rookies in the WNBA,” Chancellor said. “Not only did we start one, but we started three tonight and played four really early. That went really well. I thought Destini Hughes, (Courtney) Jones, (LaSondra) Barrett and (Taylor) Turnbow played really well for us.”
LSU quickly built the advantage to 20 points out of the locker room when Hughes connected for her first career 3-pointer and Hightower knocked down a mid-range jumper.
The Lady Tigers led by as many as 25 points on back-to-back baskets by Turnbow to make it 51-26 in favor LSU with 7:16 to play. Tulane trimmed the lead to 59-45 with 1:39 remaining in the game, but the Green Wave could not get the margin under single digits.
Jones finished with nine points and seven rebounds while Turnbow blocked two shots, registered a steal and had five rebounds to go along with her eight points.
Tulane was led in scoring by forward Brittany Lindsey, who finished with 15 points and five rebounds.
LSU HEAD COACH VAN CHANCELLOR
Opening Statement…
“I’m glad that we got the win today. I thought our defense for the first 33 minutes was really good. It reminded me of the LSU defense last year. We got plenty of players in the game, that’s another plus. I thought (G Allison) Hightower was outstanding and I thought (F LaSondra Barrett, F Courtney Jones and F Taylor Turnbow) played really well. Somebody asked me if this was the first time I had started two freshmen. I had never started very many freshmen in my whole career, or rookies in the WNBA. Not only did we start one, but we started three tonight and played four really early, and that went really well. I thought Destini Hughes, Jones, Barrett and Turnbow played really well for us.”
On the eight days of preparation before this game…
“I thought the eight days that we had off were the best eight days we’ve had since I’ve been at LSU. We got better, we changed a little bit. We went back to one of LSU’s old motions and cut out one of their other motions and I thought that went well tonight. We worked on defense. We worked on playing hard with enthusiasm, passion and character, and I thought that’s what we did. I thought that everything we had worked on, when the score was 51-28, was what we had accomplished. I was very pleased with that.”
On how the new offense is different from the old offense…
“The new motion is more five-man oriented and the old motion was more three-man oriented. There’s more movement and we bring the post players away from the basket.”
On the defensive intensity…
“I thought our defensive intensity was really good. I thought against Notre Dame it was ok, we were just scared to death. We come in here against Notre Dame on national television and played in front of 7,000 fans and we were almost like the person who opens up on Broadway and forgets their lines. That’s about what happened. Our intensity, enthusiasm and togetherness on defense tonight were everything we wanted it to be.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
On improvement from first game against Notre Dame…
“The coaches really got after us and told us what we needed to do and what we’re not doing. We just tried to clean that up as much as possible and lay it all out on the court tonight, and I think that’s what we did.”
On confidence on court…
“Coach Chancellor is always telling me to shoot the ball. It doesn’t matter where I am. That’s what I tried to do. He thought I turned down some shots tonight. He’s just trying to instill the confidence in me.”
On correcting offensive mistakes…
“We tried to get away from some confusion that the team had. We just started running a new offense and strategy instead of our old strategy. It’s just some motion, screening, moving, cutting. It is just something that I think will help us out.
On fouls throughout the game…
“We just need to be more disciplined on the defense end. We were fouling the second half a lot. We’ve really talked about not fouling, and I think that really got under Coach’s skin. It’s something we really need to improve on.”
TULANE HEAD COACH LISA STOCKTON
On the outcome of the game …
“We needed to hit some baskets. I thought at the end we played a lot smarter. We have really been trying to get the ball inside and we did that. Towards the end, we did a much better job of making easy baskets and getting the ball to our key players.”
On the difficult schedule they have endured …
“It is very difficult with the NIT. We never know where we might be. We are trying to get our kids in classes and we just got back from Arizona. We really have not had the preparation time that we needed. One thing we really need is time to fix some things. We just have not had that time to practice in between games. I think we feel good about the fact that we have played four very good teams. We have a lot to build on and that will help us become a better team in the long run.
On the meaning behind this game …
“In the past this match up has meant a lot more. These teams had more players from Louisiana and they knew each other. This is always a big game for Tulane. It is a good game for our fans, but we did not have to focus on getting our team excited about LSU. Our team gets excited when you play a team that has been in five Final Fours in a row.”
On the ability of LSU …
“I think LSU is going to get better as the season goes on. They have so many weapons. Once they learn how to use them all, I think they will be a very good team. They will definitely start to improve when they get into conference play.”