BATON ROUGE — Junior guard Allison Hightower poured in 18 of her 20 points in the second half and blocked a potential game-winning shot in the final seconds as the LSU women’s basketball team held off Kentucky to win its third straight game, 57-56, on Sunday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Lady Tigers (15-9, 8-4 Southeastern Conference) remained in a tie for fourth place in the league standings with Tennessee, who was an 82-68 winner over Mississippi State on Sunday.
LSU and the Lady Vols face each other in a rematch of last year’s NCAA Final Four semifinal at 8 p.m. CST Thursday in the Maravich Center. The contest could have huge ramifications for postseason positioning. It is the final regular season home game for the Lady Tigers and Senior Night festivities will take place.
Kentucky, who was coming off its first home win over Tennessee since 1986, lost for the seventh time in the past nine games and fell to 14-13 overall and 4-8 in SEC play. The Wildcats played without their leading scorer, senior center Eleia Roddy, who woke up Sunday morning with a stomach virus.
Sunday was “Alumni Weekend” for the LSU women’s basketball program and over 30 former players were recognized before tipoff and at halftime. The former players presented a $5,000 check in the name of the Sue Gunter Fund to the Alzheimer’s Services of the Capital Area prior to tipoff.
Despite the absence of Roddy, Kentucky erased a double-digit deficit and nearly pulled the upset with a last-second 3-point shot by Carly Morrow that was blocked by Hightower. LSU held a comfortable 53-42 lead with 4:36 to play, but late turnovers and poor free throw shooting allowed the Wildcats to claw back into the contest.
“This was not the prettiest win, but it was a win,” LSU head coach Van Chancellor said. “This is a game we needed to have and a win we needed to make to keep our NCAA (Tournament) hopes alive. We turned the ball over too much and did a lot of things I didn’t want to do, but we still won the game. I am as relieved right now as I’ve ever been because we could not afford to lose this game.”
Kentucky went on a 12-2 run and closed to within one point, 55-54, on a layup by Jenn’e Jackson with 1:17 to play. Destini Hughes missed two free throws on the other end prior to the bucket, and Amber Smith and Amani Franklin buried back-to-back 3-pointers during the spurt.
Hightower drove the lane, drew a foul and sank two free throws to put LSU back ahead by three, but Morrow countered with a pair of her own free throws to make it a 57-56 contest with 37 seconds left on the clock.
Following a timeout, Graham in an attempt to find Kristen Morris, threw an errant pass that allowed Kentucky to hold for the final possession with eight seconds left in the game. Morrow’s 3-point attempt from the left baseline with two seconds left was rejected by Hightower, who capped off a brilliant second half performance on both ends of the floor.
“What we wanted to do was not let Kentucky make a direct pass into (Victoria) Dunlap,” Chancellor said of the final play. “We thought they would run the triple screens and make a three ball. I thought Allison made a great play. She recovered and used her long arms to block the ball. When I saw we had the ball that was as happy as I’d been in while.”
Hightower finished 7-of-15 from the floor for her 12th consecutive game in double-figures. She added three assists, two blocks and three steals and has racked up a remarkable 17 steals and nine blocks in her last five games.
Hightower was held to just two points in the first half and picked up two quick fouls in the first two minutes that forced her to the bench. LSU coerced Kentucky into 21 turnovers, including 15 in the first half that led to 10 Lady Tiger points.
LSU led from start to finish and has not trailed in each of its three previous games against Florida, Georgia and Kentucky. Freshman forward LaSondra Barrett had all 11 of her points in the first half and gave LSU its first double-digit lead, 20-10, on a free throw with 6:13 to play in the first period.
The Lady Tigers took a 26-20 lead into the locker room and built that advantage to 39-29 with 11:30 in the second half following an Ayana Dunning putback. Hightower’s 3-pointer ? her first in 13 games ? put LSU up 48-39 with 6:23 remaining. Her ensuing jumper gave the Lady Tigers their largest lead, 51-39, before the Wildcats made their run.
LSU held Kentucky to 37.5 percent (18-of-46) shooting for the game, while the Lady Tigers finished 48.9 percent (22-of-45) from the floor. LSU was just 11-of-21 from the free throw line and was outrebounded, 39-27.
UK forward Victoria Dunlap led all scorers with 21 points and 15 rebounds. Franklin chipped in 14 points and six boards.
LSU HEAD COACH VAN CHANCELLOR
Opening statement …
“We are going to take this baby any way we can. This was not the prettiest win, but it was a win. This is a game we needed to have and a win we needed to make to keep our NCAA hopes alive. We turned the ball over too much and did a lot of things I didn’t want to do, but we still won the game. I am as relieved right now as I’ve ever been because we could not afford to lose this game.”
On what he wanted to accomplish with the last play …
“What we wanted to do was not let Kentucky make a direct pass into (Victoria) Dunlap. We thought they would run the triple screens and make a three ball. If they could make a three ball, they were going to beat us. We didn’t want to go inside and foul them. I had (Katherine) Graham to get in front of the ball. Our whole though was that we though Dunlap could hurt us and we were trying to stop her. I thought Allison (Hightower) made a great play. She was beat bad and she didn’t give up. She recovered and used her long arms to block the ball. When I saw we had the ball that was as happy as I’d been in while.”
On if he would rather play offense or defense …
“With this team I’d like a one point lead and the other team have the ball and us be one point ahead rather than us have the ball and be one point down. There is no telling what I’m going do when I get it on offense. I didn’t want Allison (Hightower) to give up the ball. When we had the ball, I wanted her to put it on the rim some how, some way. There are two things we aren’t going to do after Tuesday. We aren’t going to foul with a lead and Allison isn’t going to be passing the ball at the end of the game.”
On playing Kentucky …
“I thought Kentucky had a great plan. They are really a match up problem for us. The last four times we have played them have been hard. The first time was easy. The last two times, they were tough on us. They just run some stuff that is hard for us to guard. When they went to that four guard line up, that was a real match-up problem for us.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
On playing without Allison Hightower on the court …
“All of our team is capable of scoring, but I feel like I need to be more aggressive offensively when she isn’t out there. I was feeling it so it went well and I thought if we could hang in there and then bring Allison in it would be even more trouble for Kentucky.”
On their confidence going into the last play …
“I think the main threat of Amani Franklin was out. I thought they were going to (Victoria) Dunlap, but they were running (Carly Morrow) off of double screens all night. We knew how to guard it so she didn’t score as much.”
On what they thought would be the last play …
“We thought (Kentucky) was going to try to pound the ball in to Victoria Dunlap and try to get her a shot in the paint, but they took the three.”
On what the team wanted to accomplish in the second half …
“We just wanted to take away the three. They had started shooting a couple and knocking them down, so we just wanted to make sure that we took away that first and then take away the paint as best as we could.”
On her thoughts at the half …
“We needed to pick it up. I knew I needed to be on the floor to help the team and just be smarter.”
On winning the game …
“It was a win, but we didn’t have the best game. It was on our side today and we are happy we got the win. We had two good wins against Florida and Georgia and we got a good win today too so hopefully we are still in the running for the NCAA tournament.”
KENTUCKY HEAD COACH MATTHEW MITCHELL
Opening Statement…
“that was a terribly disappointing game for us to lose. We turned the ball over needlessly so many times and we can’t do that and win basketball games. We need to do a much better job of taking care of the ball. LSU is a very tough team and they were a lot tougher than we were today. I was pleased that our players kept battling. We were down double digits a couple of times in the second half and fought back each time. We’ll have to try to move on from this one and get ready for the next one, but we’re real disappointed to lose this one.”
On the last play of the game…
“Well, we got the ball where we wanted it to go. We were trying to run a little misdirection action there. We tried to set a good screen and really would have preferred if we put the ball on the ground since LSU closed out so aggressively. That’s the only thing that I would have told our players to do differently.”
On if he thought there was contact on the final shot…
“I can’t talk to you about that. I would love to. We could sit here for hours, but I can’t talk to you about that.””
On F/C Eleia Roddy’s illness…
“She had a great shoot around this morning. It was really unfortunate for her and our team. We had a very good practice session this morning and she looked great. When we got back to the hotel, she had an onset of the stomach flu. It’s one of those things that will probably be gone in 24 hours, just an amazing turn of events there. She was dynamite at 8 a.m. and then at 10 a.m. she couldn’t hold her head up. It was just incredible. “
On the consecutive three-point shots in the second half that cut the lead to six…
“We got in so many situations today because LSU played such aggressive defense. When you do that there are some opportunities, but we couldn’t make them pay enough times. In the last five minutes we started getting some tremendous looks. We started driving to the basket and getting to the free-throw line. Those two threes were big. It was a 2-point game and we were able to make back-to-back threes and that was obviously very key for us.
“I was very upset with how we handled the ball today and didn’t play with a lot of poise, but they gave a hack of an effort today and gave themselves a chance.”