STARKVILLE, Miss. – Sophomore guard Adrienne Webb scored a career-high 26 points and freshman Jeanne Kenney added a career-best 17 points as the LSU women’s basketball team returned to its road winning ways with a convincing 72-55 victory at Mississippi State on Thursday night in Humphrey Coliseum.
The Lady Tigers (12-6, 2-2 SEC) returned to the .500 mark in Southeastern Conference play with its second consecutive win. LSU, the league leader in SEC road wins since 2008 with 18, returned to form after watching an 18-point lead slip away last Thursday at South Carolina.
Mississippi State (8-7, 0-3) remained winless in conference play and has now dropped nine of the last 10 meetings with LSU by double-digits.
Webb finished 10-of-20 from the floor and knocked down 4-of-9 from beyond the arc. Her 26 points were the most since Allison Hightower scored 26 in the season finale against Mississippi State last year.
Kenney was 5-of-8 from three-point land and LSU shot a season-best 10-of-20 from three-point land for the game. It represented the third straight game an LSU player had scored 20 points or more. Webb’s previous career-high was 18 points on two different instances.
“It’s great to come back home and get a win,” said LSU head coach Van Chancellor, a Mississippi State graduate. “That’s the best we’ve shot it all year. (Adrienne) Webb and (Jeanne) Kenney made some shots from downtown Tupelo. We reversed the ball, got it inside and kicked it out to hit some threes. We are still a work in progress, but a win on the road in this league is always good. If you are going to win in this league you are going to have to play for 40 minutes.”
Kenney hit three treys in the first half, including two on consecutive trips down that made it 27-19 in favor of LSU with 4:37 left in the first half. The Lady Tigers took a 32-26 lead into halftime and they quickly built the advantage back to double-digits when Webb buried a three with 17:04 remaining in the game.
The Lady Bulldogs got it back to eight points but Kenney’s three from the top of the key ignited a 7-0 run that gave LSU a comfortable 51-36 lead with 9:56 to go. The Lady Tigers cruised the rest of the way and shot 50.9 percent, their second-highest shooting percentage of the season.
Mississippi State had three players in double-figures led by 15 points from Catina Bett. The Lady Bulldogs were out-rebounded 35-28.
LSU hits the road again to take on Auburn at 2 p.m. CT Sunday in newly constructed Auburn Arena. The game will be televised by Comcast Sports Southeast (CSS) and Cox Sports Television (CST). Live streaming video of the telecast is also available on www.ESPN3.com.