BATON ROUGE – Akilah Bethel poured in a season’s best 16 points, but the LSU women’s basketball team had its two-game winning streak come to a close as Tulane emerged with a 51-45 victory over the Lady Tigers Wednesday at the Maravich Center.
Bethel was 7-of-10 shooting and racked up 10 of her game-leading 16 points in the second half. She grabbed five rebounds and tacked on three steals over her 29 minutes of action. Raigyne Moncrief garnered eight points, three rebounds and two steals.
Off the bench, DaShawn Harden tallied nine points, four rebounds and three steals. Stephanie Amichia chipped in five rebounds, three rebounds and three steals – all coming during the second half. Sheila Boykin secured a team-leading six rebounds, while Anne Pedersen distributed a team-high three assists.
“Our team has done a lot of good things the past few games,” head coach Nikki Caldwell said. “Defensively, we’ve put out a great effort. We’ve done a nice job of disrupting people offensively. We’ve done a nice job of really extending our defense and forcing turnovers. What I am seeing is a team that is struggling offensively. We’ve got to regroup and figure out the play action that we need to run – really how to get this team to be more efficient on the offensive end. Tulane is a very good basketball team. I felt as though, in the second half, they did a really nice job of picking where they were going to strike. Players were going to make baskets, and that was the difference in the game in the second half.”
As a team, LSU turned in 17-of-50 shooting effort and tallied a 2-for-7 shooting clip from three-point territory. The Lady Tigers struggled at the charity stripe going 9-for-17. LSU hauled in 19 offensive rebounds and collected a 35-27 edge on the glass. However, the Lady Tigers were only to able to convert the extra opportunities into 10 second-chance points.
Tulane was an efficient 17-of-35 from the floor and converted on 10 of its 17 field goal attempts during the second half. The Green Wave produced a 5-for-13 mark from triple territory and was 12-of-18 at the free throw line.
Tulane was paced by Kolby Morgan’s 13 points and Danielle Blagg’s 10 points. The Green Wave also received eight points apiece from Tiffany Dale and Jamie Kaplan.
Trailing 40-35 at the 4:43 mark of the second half, LSU put together an 8-2 flurry to snatch a 43-42 advantage heading down the stretch. Moncrief ignited the charge with two free throws, but it was Bethel who buried a trio of buckets in the paint to make it 43-42 with 2:09 remaining.
With the shot clock running down, Kaplan banked in an off-balanced 12-footer on the left wing to vault Tulane ahead 44-43 with 58.4 seconds to go.
On LSU’s ensuing possession, Harden missed a three-pointer. The Green Wave had Morgan split a pair of free throws but Chinwe Dure secured a critical offensive rebound for Tulane. She sank both of her free throws to extend the Green Wave edge to 47-43 with 26.3 ticks left.
Tulane added four more free throws inside the final 30 seconds and tucked away the 51-45 decision.
“I will tell you that those type of plays sting a lot more because of when they come,” Caldwell said. “You never want a player to feel as though they were the sole reason for the loss. We all play a part in this loss. We win together as a team, and we lose together as a team. We have to be able to stay on our toes in every aspect of the game whether it is in the beginning or at the end. I take full responsibility. We need to drill more late-game situations like that where we put them at the free throw line so they have to box out hard. We take that for granted because I assume we are going to do it. Practicing that more may help them, but actually going through and experiencing a close game – this team being able to come back from being down and come back with defense. There were a couple plays where we broke down defensively but had we been solid that is another area that could have changed the outcome of the game.”
Tulane jumped out to a 14-6 lead at the 15:17 mark of the opening half. The Green Wave dialed up a trio of three-pointers during the early going.
The Lady Tigers made adjustments and forced Tulane to miss on nine of its final 11 shots over the final 12 minutes of the half. Bethel and Harden combined for 11 of LSU’s 18 points as the Lady Tigers cut the margin to 21-18 heading into the locker room.
“I think this group is a young group, and we are going to have our growing pains,” Caldwell said. “I also have a vision for this group. I see this team being able to learn from this week and learn from what we are doing in non-conference play. Again, Tulane is a very good basketball team. They have size and skilled players. They have got shooters who can really extend the defense. They have hustle players, and they have a veteran squad. We have to be ready again come Saturday to face another challenge. I felt as though this group played with a lot of heart, and we did not execute the way we needed to on the offensive end. It was not that we did not have the opportunities to do so – we were all over the glass, and we had opportunities to make layups and free throws.”
LSU wraps up its five-game homestand to open the 2014-15 season and meets Rutgers Saturday afternoon at the Maravich Center.
Tip time is slated for 2 p.m., and game will be carried online only by SEC Network Plus via www.WatchESPN.com and the Watch ESPN app. Lyn Rollins and Victor Howell will serve as the announcing team.
The LSU Sports Radio Network will broadcast the game on its flagship station Talk 107.3 FM in Baton Rouge. The broadcast featuring Patrick Wright, the voice of the Lady Tigers, also will be available for Geaux Zone subscribers at www.LSUsports.net/live.
Season tickets are on sale for $75 online at http://www.LSUtix.net/. The LSU Athletics Ticket Office can be reached at (800) 960-8587 or (225) 578-2184 and is located on the first floor of the Moran Family Center for Athletics Administration Building. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.
For all of the latest news and information on Lady Tiger basketball, visit www.LSUsports.net/womensbasketball. Fans can also follow the program on its social media outlets at www.Facebook.com/LSUwbkb, @lsuwbkb and @NikkiCaldwell on Twitter, @LSUwbkb and @LSUNikkiCaldwell on Instagram.
LSU Women’s Basketball Postgame Quotes
LSU vs. Tulane – November 19, 2014
HEAD COACH NIKKI CALDWELL
Opening statement …
“Our team has done a lot of good things the past few games. Defensively, we’ve put out a great effort. We’ve done a nice job of disrupting people offensively. We’ve done a nice job of really extending our defense and forcing turnovers. What I am seeing is a team that is struggling offensively. We’ve got to regroup and figure out the play action that we need to run – really how to get this team to be more efficient on the offensive end. Tulane is a very good basketball team. I felt as though, in the second half, they did a really nice job of picking where they were going to strike. Players were going to make baskets, and that was the difference in the game in the second half.”
On the errors late in the second half…
“I will tell you that those type of plays sting a lot more because of when they come. You never want a player to feel as though they were the sole reason for the loss. We all play a part in this loss. We win together as a team, and we lose together as a team. We have to be able to stay on our toes in every aspect of the game whether it is in the beginning or at the end. I take full responsibility. We need to drill more late-game situations like that where we put them at the free throw line so they have to box out hard. We take that for granted because I assume we are going to do it. Practicing that more may help them, but actually going through and experiencing a close game – this team being able to come back from being down and come back with defense. There were a couple plays where we broke down defensively but had we been solid that is another area that could have changed the outcome of the game.”
On the state of the team through four games…
“I think this group is a young group, and we are going to have our growing pains. I also have a vision for this group. I see this team being able to learn from this week and learn from what we are doing in non-conference play. Again, Tulane is a very good basketball team. They have size and skilled players. They have got shooters who can really extend the defense. They have hustle players, and they have a veteran squad. We have to be ready again come Saturday to face another challenge. I felt as though this group played with a lot of heart, and we did not execute the way we needed to on the offensive end. It was not that we did not have the opportunities to do so – we were all over the glass, and we had opportunities to make layups and free throws.”
On the game pace…
“We were looking at the statistics of our team offensively. In the first 10 seconds of the shot clock, we were operating at about 10 percent – the first ten seconds of the shot clock over the past few games. That was one of the reasons why we wanted to change the pace of the game where we had to make them play defense. Let’s start our action around 15 (seconds – that eliminated a lot of that quick shooting of the basketball, not knowing that it was going up, so our rebounding would suffer. Obviously tonight, we knew when the shots were going up. Our offensive rebounding was very good. We didn’t capitalize off of those offensive rebounds. Had we done so, the outcome of the game would have been different … 19 (offensive rebounds) is a very good number … Our goal is to rebound fifty percent or more of our missed shots.”
On the growing pains of the team early in the season …
“I think it is (growing pains). I think it’s maybe a couple of our guards who had played last year a lot of quality minutes, especially like (Raigyne) Moncrief and (DaShawn) Harden. They may be feeling more pressure. When you look at the rest of our roster, no one really played that many minutes last year. We have five new faces. Two of those were in practice, but they didn’t play last year. Our two transfers – this is like a brand new team, and we’re very young … I thought they played hard tonight … It didn’t feel as though this team was at all trying to lose the game. Things didn’t go our way offensively, but it wasn’t a lack of not trying. I felt as though defensively, there were a lot of great possessions where you could see we were just really working Tulane. But down the stretch, they made some big plays. Veteran guards made big plays for them and made big baskets.
GUARD DASHAWN HARDEN
On the game’s pace …
“We like to play fast, so I don’t really think we wanted to slow it down. At times, we need to slow it down because of the way we are turnover prone. But, I think the pace, for us, was actually working – getting up and pressuring them and getting steals and layups. That was really working for us. I don’t really think there was a point in the game we needed to slow it down.”
On the team’s game plan …
“Our plan, at the beginning of the game, was to slow it down and to eliminate our turnovers. We can go fast at any time because that’s what we like to do. Teams slowing us down … we’re trying to break away from that being an issue for us.”
On her role coming off the bench …
“I just try to bring as much energy and leadership as possible with the experience that I have from last year. That’s pretty much what I try to provide for the team this year since we are so new and young.”
On the team’s performance at the free throw line …
“You see the stats, and it’s all how the game turned out. We are pretty sure that is what we need to focus on.”
On her steals on the defensive end …
“I think just being in the right place at the right time. For our defense, the trapping in the corners has helped me get a lot of steals just based off of the other team not being able to throw over our longer defenders on the back line.”
FORWARD AKILAH BETHEL
On not being able to turn offensive rebounds into baskets …
“I think there’s definitely a frustration, but we have to just take it back and slow it down. We need to realize that the ball is in our possession and that we have control over what we do.”
On team spirit …
“There’s huddles – we try to stay positive, get it back and have that energy of positivity out there.”
On individual improvement …
“Free throws. Free throws are a must because they will cost us in close games. We don’t want that to be a limiting factors in whether we win or lose.”