BATON ROUGE — Freshman guard Destini Hughes scored all 14 of her points in the second half, and the LSU women’s basketball team overcame a sluggish start with a remarkable 23-0 run that propelled the Lady Tigers past Texas Southern, 61-30, on Monday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
LSU (2-3) saw its two-game home losing streak come to an end while amassing its largest run since the Lady Tigers put together a 24-0 spurt in the second half at Arkansas on Feb. 15, 2007.
“I am so pleased we won,” LSU head coach Van Chancellor said. “I am going to enjoy this win. We played in the second half the way we should have played in the first half. I thought when we came out of the second half there was going to be not a soul in the stands. I was surprised they all stayed. We have the best fans. I am so happy for the intensity they have.”
With LSU clinging to a 21-17 lead through the first minute of the second half, freshman forward Taylor Turnbow knocked down a jumper at the 16:51 mark to ignite the 23-0 run. Hughes then took over the game with nine points in the next two minutes on a mid-range jumper and 3-pointers from the right wing and top of the key, respectively.
Texas Southern (1-3) went nearly 10 minutes without a field goal. Jasmine Greer pulled TSU to within four points, 21-17, at the 18:14 mark, and Texas Southern would not score again until Greer accounted for another jumper with 8:20 left in the contest.
LSU forced eight turnovers during the stretch and turned what was a close game at the half into a blowout. Hughes’ second 3-pointer made it 32-17 in favor of LSU, and junior guard Andrea Kelly knocked down another three and gave the Lady Tigers a 44-17 lead with 8:43 remaining in the game.
One possession later, Hughes accounted for her third 3-point shot of the evening as LSU led 47-19 with 8:03 to go. Hughes finished 4-of-7 from the field with a career-best 14 points, three steals and two assists in a breakout game for the true freshman.
“She (Hughes) played well tonight,” Chancellor said. “She came out of the second half and really took control of her shooting game.”
Senior Kristen Morris enjoyed her best game to date and nearly finished with a double-double with eight points and nine rebounds in 14 minutes of action. Freshman forward LaSondra Barrett added eight points and five boards, and sophomore guard Latear Eason tallied a season-best four steals.
LSU shot 37 percent (23-of-63) for the game and held Texas Southern to just 26 percent on 11 made field goals. LSU forced 27 turnovers, while Texas Southern’s 30 points were the lowest by an opponent since McNeese State had 28 points in a 83-28 loss to the Lady Tigers on Dec. 20, 2006.
Texas Southern used a 13-2 run midway through the first half to close to within six points as LSU held a 21-15 lead at the half.
The Lady Tigers return to action on Dec. 15 against Louisiana Tech in the Maravich Center. LSU takes a two-week break for game action to prepare for and take academic finals.
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
On back-to-back three pointers…
“My teammate found me open. It wasn’t anything I did. I was just open on the side and Katherine (Graham) spotted me and made a great pass, and I just knocked it down.”
On gaining confidence in second half…
“Early on Coach (Chancellor) wanted a lot of paint touches, so I didn’t want to rush anything and wanted to make sure we got good offense going. I knew I could get the shots later, so I didn’t want to rush it. In the second half, I felt that I had the shots wide open, so I took them.”
On slow start in first half…
“There’s no excuse. We didn’t come out to play. We weren’t playing to the best of our ability. There was no effort. We knew we were playing badly, and we knew we had to pick it up in the second half. We got a pep talk in the locker room that motivated us to play harder in the second half.”
TEXAS SOUTHERN HEAD COACH YOLANDA WELLS-BROUGHTON
Opening Statement …
“I’m very excited to be back at LSU. I was very nervous. I actually tripped coming out onto the court. I tried to stay in the locker room as long as possible to try and get some of the butterflies out. I’m extremely proud of my players. I felt like in the first half we competed extremely well; we did everything right. In the second half we could not throw it in the ocean. They (LSU) gave us fits with their press, but I think the biggest things was my team got better today and it’s definitely going to help us get prepared for the SWAC. I felt like our players were really excited about the opportunity. They were nervous early on, but once we got going they started buying into it. We were able to give LSU some fits defensively as they were trying to work out their offense. Now we’ve got to go home and turn our attention towards the University of Houston.”
On their offensive game plan …
“We felt like we could zone them and we knew we had to zone them because their strength is getting to the rim so. We felt like we could zone them and force them to shoot it. We didn’t expect them to be able to shoot wide open three’s in transition. We felt like we could get to the boards on them and we did outrebound them in the first half.”
On their defensive game plan …
“Our focus was to take away the penetration from (Allison) Hightower and our second game plan was to attack (Andrea) Kelly and take away her shot and limit her touches. We felt like if we were going to get beat we’ll make everyone else beat us, with the exception of those two.”