COLUMBIA, S.C. — After two months of non-conference preparation and a defining win at No. 13 Xavier, the 11th-ranked LSU women’s basketball team opens Southeastern Conference play at South Carolina at 5 p.m. CST Sunday in a game televised nationally by ESPNU in Colonial Life Arena.
The Lady Tigers will be making their first-ever appearance on ESPNU as part of the league’s new television contract with the ESPN Family of Networks. The game will also be carried live on the LSU Sports Radio Network on 107.3 FM in Baton Rouge and in the Geaux Zone on www.LSUsports.net.
“I like where we are at right now,” LSU head coach Van Chancellor said. “We have to step our game up because the real season begins with SEC play. I think our non-SEC schedule has set us up well for league play.”
LSU (11-1) comes into the contest following a 56-47 victory over the Musketeers last Wednesday in Cincinnati. The win was the 500th for Chancellor in now his 22nd collegiate season.
The Lady Tigers held one of the nation’s highest scoring teams to their lowest output of the season and they never trailed in the contest. It was the second win over a ranked opponent this season for LSU.
“We learned a lot about our team at Xavier,” Chancellor said. “We needed to grow tougher and we did. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well and missed some free throws, but we still found a way to win on the road against a quality basketball team.”
The Lady Tigers have finished with at least a share of second place in six out of the last seven seasons, including last year when LSU put together a 10-4 mark thanks to a five-game winning streak to close the regular season. This season, the Lady Tigers were selected to win the SEC regular season title by the media and they were chosen second by the league’s coaches.
LSU puts a five-game SEC regular season winning streak on the line dating back to last season’s win versus Florida on Feb. 15. Under Chancellor, LSU is 12-2 on the road in SEC play and the Lady Tigers are the only team in the league with double-digit road SEC wins during that span.
Senior preseason All-American guard Allison Hightower takes a streak of 10 straight double-figure scoring games into the contest. Hightower, who poured in a game-high 18 at Xavier, leads the Lady Tigers with 16.6 points per game and she ranks fifth in the SEC in that category. LaSondra Barrett, the 2009 SEC Co-Freshman of the Year, is LSU’s top rebounder at 5.9 boards per contest.
LSU continues to make its mark with its man-to-man defense, boasting the nation’s third-best scoring defense at 45.8 points per contest. Eight times this season, the Lady Tigers have surrendered 50 points or less. Four out of the last six opponents have failed to reach the 40-point mark.
South Carolina (7-5) features two of the SEC’s elite scorers in Valerie Nainima and freshman Kelsey Bone, who average 19.3 and 14.5 points per game, respectively. Bone is the top scoring freshman in the league and she ranks second among all players in the conference in rebounding at 10.0 per contest.
“This is a great challenge for us against a much improved South Carolina team,” Chancellor said. “They are going to surprise some people in this league and I think they will finish strong. They have two of the top six scorers in the league and will be tough to defend.”
The Gamecocks, picked to finish sixth in the SEC by the coaches, have dropped two of their last three games. No. 9 North Carolina held on to beat South Carolina, 93-85, on Dec. 20, but the Gamecocks rallied for a 73-46 win over Brown in their last outing on Dec. 29.
LSU has won 12 games in a row over South Carolina dating back to 1999. The Lady Tigers are 9-1 all-time in Columbia and lead the entire series 18-3. The last time LSU lost to South Carolina was Feb. 26, 1998, at the SEC Tournament. Barrett scored 19 points to lead LSU to a 63-56 win in Columbia last season.
Chancellor coached South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley in his final two seasons at the WNBA’s Houston Comets.
Staley was a two-time WNBA All-Star in 2005 and 2006 as a member of Chancellor’s teams. Chancellor also coached Staley on the 2004 United States Olympic team that won gold in Athens.