BATON ROUGE – The LSU women’s basketball team was handed a 75-51 defeat by No. 1 South Carolina Sunday as a season’s best 3,438 fans gathered at the Maravich Center for its SEC home opener.
The Gamecocks (14-0, 2-0 SEC) were fueled by 6-5 freshman A’ja Wilson, who come off the bench to post her fourth consecutive double-double. She amassed 21 points on 7-of-11 from the floor coupled with a 7-for-9 effort at the free throw line. Wilson also pulled down 13 rebounds to give South Carolina its longest winning streak in school history.
“South Carolina is a very good basketball team, well coached and unbelievable players,” head coach Nikki Caldwell said. “They are obviously one of the best teams in the country. We had opportunities to compete, and I thought there were spurts there that we played really good. I thought we were challenged in the paint due to their size and their toughness in that area, but this is something that this team can take and learn from and we are going to move forward.”
LSU (7-7, 1-1 SEC) did not have any players reach double figures. DaShawn Harden tallied eight of her team-leading nine points during the second half. LSU’s backcourt also received eight points courtesy of Anne Pedersen, and Raigyne Moncrief chipped in seven points for the Lady Tigers.
Making her second start of the season, Stephanie Amichia registered eight points on 4-of-6 shooting and equaled a career-high with seven rebounds. Sheila Boykin picked up six points and 11 rebounds. The 11 rebounds tied the second-highest career output for Boykin.
LSU was limited to a 34.4 percent shooting clip and misfired on six of its seven three-point attempts. The Lady Tigers struggled at the foul line with a 6-for-16 effort.
Conversely, South Carolina fired in 27-of-53 from the field which included an 8-for-21 mark from beyond the three-point arc. The Gamecocks were 13-of-18 at the charity stripe.
The Lady Tigers did force South Carolina into 23 turnovers, the most committed by the Gamecocks this season. LSU was able to get 14 points of those turnovers, the same point total the Lady Tigers surrendered to South Carolina on their 18 turnovers. The Gamecocks had 18 assists on its 27 baskets, while LSU was only able to muster four assists on its 22 field goals.
Tiffany Mitchell, the SEC’s Preseason Player of the Year, pumped in 17 points for Carolina. She dialed up a trio of three-pointers and was 7-of-12 on field goals overall.
LSU opened the scoring on a Boykin bucket, but the Gamecocks began to seize the momentum with eight straight points highlighted by a pair of Mitchell triples to take a quick 8-2 with 16:17 remaining.
The Lady Tigers responded with eight of the next 10 points to close the margin to 10-8 on consecutive layups from Boykin and Jenna Deemer at the 12:07 mark.
Ahead 22-16 with 5:17 to go, South Carolina started to creep away behind 15 of the final 21 points of the opening half. The Gamecocks received points from five players headed by Wilson’s five points to secure a 37-22 advantage at halftime.
During the opening 20 minutes, South Carolina hit 15-of-30 field goal attempts which included 6-of-15 three-pointers. LSU could only make 9-of-27 from the floor.
The Gamecocks carried their momentum out of the locker room and ripped off a 19-3 run to stretch to make it 56-25 with 11:07 left. The 31-point deficit is the largest LSU has faced all season.
The Lady Tigers would put together 11 of the last 17 points over the final 3:43 of the contest for the final margin of 75-51. Amichia and Pedersen each provided two baskets for LSU during the stretch.
“I just told them (in the locker room), I said ‘You can take a lesson from South Carolina. You can learn a lot from this team.’ They are not a No. 1 one team in the country,” Caldwell said. “They went to the players who had the hot hand. Defensively, they gave us some looks by rotating their defense, but we didn’t make the extra pass. We only have two assists at the half and four for the game. You just aren’t going to win many games with only four assists, and you’re going to struggle offensively. We’ve got to be a much better team in sharing the basketball.”
LSU will look to regroup Thursday when Vanderbilt visits the Maravich Center. Tipoff is on-tap for 8 p.m., and the game will be nationally televised by the SEC Network.
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.
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
#1 South Carolina vs. LSU – January 4, 2015
HEAD COACH NIKKI CALDWELL
Opening statement …
“South Carolina is a very good basketball team, well coached and unbelievable players. They are obviously one of the best teams in the country. We had opportunities to compete, and I thought there were spurts there that we played really good. I thought we were challenged in the paint due to their size and their toughness in that area, but this is something that this team can take and learn from and we are going to move forward.”
On the execution of the defensive game plan …
“When you look at eight shots from the perimeter (for South Carolina), the three point line, you had two of them – one banked in and one almost hit the top of the backboard and went in. So you can’t take away everything from a team like South Carolina, but you can’t give them both things. It was our decision as a team and as a staff after watching a lot of film on them – watching the action of Hampton, watching the defensive action of Duke and the defensive action of Syracuse – we felt it was in our best interest to not over extend our defense and really try to take away some of their paint points. We did not take away the paint points, and that was the philosophy going in as far as defensively, was to do so. We can’t allow one player to go off on you because that is not a good thing. We allowed (A’ja) Wilson time and time again to get touches. We had people in front of her and behind her. She was just overpowering us. As Sheila (Boykin) alluded to, this was a disappointing loss because we did not execute what we had been practicing. I think that is one of the frustrations that you feel as a coach if there is something else and something more that we need to be doing for them. When we see things and we think that they are going to work and they don’t, we are obviously not on the same page on that regard. We have got to get on the same page with what the game plan is.”
On her postgame message to the team …
“I just told them, I said ‘You can take a lesson from South Carolina. You can learn a lot from this team.’ They are not a No. 1 one team in the country. They went to the players who had the hot hand. Defensively, they gave us some looks by rotating their defense, but we didn’t make the extra pass. We only have two assists at the half and four for the game. You just aren’t going to win many games with only four assists, and you’re going to struggle offensively. We’ve got to be a much better team in sharing the basketball.”
On what is important besides game plan …
“[The game plan] is where it has to start – the discipline for us to scout people and really go out and defend them a certain way. The discipline, offensively, the runs, certain action, so I do think it starts there. I also think, one of the things I told the team too, was that when we first got here four years ago, we were one of the biggest teams in the country. We were huge. Sheila (Boykin) was a part of that and so was Anne Pedersen. They remember that. The difference that we can bring is that they (South Carolina) may be one of the biggest teams, but I want our team to be the team that has the biggest heart. I challenged our group today to play with heart – to get on the floor, loose balls, to triple box out the weak side and be physical. We fell short of that. Those are the things, to me, that make the difference. That is how you put down the number one team in the country. You have to do those things that don’t show up in the stat sheet, and we didn’t do that today. That is something that we have got to get back to. That is something that we are going to continue to focus in on and put emphasis on with this team. This game is played not only between your ears, but it is played by what your heart pounds to. We’ve got to get our pulse back up.”
LSU FORWARD SHELIA BOYKIN
On what needs to improve from today’s game …
“We needed to do our job guarding inside. That was our game plan, protecting the paint, we need to stick to the game plan. We need to play for 40 minutes.”
On the difficulty to score against South Carolina’s defense …
“It was, but as coach always says, ‘It all starts on your defense.’ I think everyone has this thing where we think we could catch up from a 20-point deficit with one basket. You have to take it one possession at a time. You have to take really good shots on offense. Defensively, we have to protect the basket, and we have to get back to executing on the court. ”
On South Carolina’s A’ja Wilson…
“She was a really good player and a really tough player to guard inside. She was a challenge with her size and her physicality.”
On her reaction to this game…
“I wouldn’t say that I’m disgusted. I would say that I am a tad bit disappointed, mainly in myself. There are things that I could have done better. You can go down the line. We all could have brought something more than what we brought today. It’s more of a disappointing feeling because we could’ve won this game if we did what we were supposed to do.”
LSU FORWARD STEPHANIE AMICHIA
On South Carolina’s A’ja Wilson…
“She is a great player but it comes back to us playing defense together. I know Coach Nikki always says, ‘when the ball goes somewhere, all five of you need to close out to that person,’ so we just needed to, all five of us, make sure that she didn’t have the ball in her hand, and all five make sure that we closed out and made sure that she had a problem making that shot. I don’t think we gave her that issue and we let her get the ball where she wanted. We let her get the hot hand.”
On adjusting to South Carolina’s size and speed …
“I think that the way we started the first half was perfect. We packed it in. We made them have to shoot that (outside shots). They had a lot of outside shots, they just knocked them down. I feel like we just tried to deviate a little from that.”
SOUTH CAROLINA HEAD COACH DAWN STALEY
On her team’s effort …
“I feel like we’re making progress. We’re taking two steps forward and one step back at times. Anytime you can get a road win in our league, it’s pretty special. We really haven’t had a whole lot of success here at LSU because they really do a good job at taking care of their homecourt. They had a good crowd out there. I just thought our players were up for the challenge of playing hard and trying to get a win for 40 minutes.”
On shutting down LSU’s DaShawn Harden …
“I think DaShawn is a pretty good player. What we try to do is make her work for a lot of her catches and make it real difficult for her to get clean looks. You saw at the end of the game where she was getting clean looks, and she was knocking them down. I thought Tiffany Mitchell did a really good job at the beginning of the game of just making her play both sides of the ball. When you have a player that can score and make an impact on both sides of the ball like DaShawn, you have to make her work. You have to have someone who is equally as energized for the challenge, and I felt like Tiffany Mitchell was. “
On the team’s offensive adjustments late in the first half …
“I think our team was in conflict – we’ve seen people pack it onto us like LSU did in the first half. They got a little gunshot for some reason. We insert people in the basketball game that we feel give us an advantage. Tina Roy is someone that can shoot the ball. She was hesitating, and she was giving up shots. Obviously, we didn’t put her in the game to get defensive stops. We put her in to be a zone buster, and she was just hesitating. The only way we’re going to get them out of the collapsing zone is to knock down some shots. It was fairly simple. You’re open, they’re practice shots and we were hesitant to not take them.”
On A’ja Wilson’s performance …
“I think A’ja benefits from having been on a team full of players who have experienced SEC play. She has great teammates who put her in a position to be successful. She doesn’t have to feel a whole lot of pressure of scoring and performing. She can just be who she is. She can just take her time to learn how to play at this level night in and night out. She’s got big game capability, and she hasn’t even touched the surface on being a great player. She’s just playing within what we’re doing. I like to see her kind of deviate a little bit and get a little more aggressive on both sides of the ball. She’ll definitely be a starter. She could be a starter this year, but we felt going with our experienced players who can understand she can get a better feel for the game seeing how affective they are.”