BATON ROUGE, La. – The Lady Tigers defeated UL-Monroe, 61-54, in overtime at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center Sunday afternoon to improve to 1-1 on the season.
Junior Raigyne Moncrief hit a jumper with under one second remaining in regulation to knot the score at 53, and send the game into overtime. LSU held ULM to just a free throw during overtime for the eventual 61-54 victory.
ULM led by as many as six, 52-46, with 3:37 remaining in regulation. LSU cut the lead to three, 52-49, with 2:23 left off a free throw by senior Akilah Bethel and a layup by junior Alexis Hyder. ULM added a free throw before Jenna Deemer tacked on two free throws as ULM led, 52-51 with just over a minute to go in regulation. ULM’s Chelsea Tieguel hit a free throw to give ULM the 53-51 lead with just nine seconds left on the clock before Moncrief registered the game-tying jumper with .8 on the clock.
Hyder led LSU with her first double-double as a Lady Tiger with 15 points and 15 rebounds. She was 5-of-9 from the field and hit all five of her free-throw attempts. She also tallied three steals and dished out two assists.
Junior Rina Hill and senior Ann Jones both scored in double digits with 12 and 11 points, respectively. Hill also posted two assists and a steal, while Jones also totaled two steals. Moncrief was held scoreless in the first half but came up big to push the Lady Tigers into overtime. She finished the game with nine points, seven rebounds, four assists and three steals.
After hitting just 43.5 percent (10-23) of their free throws in the season opening loss at Wake Forest on Friday evening, the Lady Tigers recovered with an 80.0 percent (20-25) shooting clip from the charity stripe against ULM.
The Lady Tigers jumped out to an early 20-9 lead in the first quarter, but was held to just eight points in the second quarter to take the narrow, 28-25 lead at the half. LSU was 10-of-25 from the field in the first half, while ULM was 8-of-17. The Warhawks hit five three pointers in the first half.
Aundrea Davis paced ULM with 15 points off 5-of-9 shooting from the field, including a 4-of-5 mark from three-point range. Tieuel and Andreanna Jackson also scored in double figures with 14 points and 10 points, respectively.
LSU Starters
Akilah Bethel, Alexis Hyder, Anne Pedersen, Raigyne Moncrief, Rina Hill
ULM Starters
Alayshia Hunter, Jamie Gibson, Aundrea Davis, Andreanna Jackson, Ashley Aune
Post-Game Quotes
LSU HEAD COACH NIKKI FARGAS
Opening Statement…
“A lot of credit to ULM. They did an unbelievable job of executing their game plan. They were very physical. They played like a team and fought to the very end. We were lucky we were able to make some plays down the stretch to pull away in the overtime win.”
On the change in the second half…
“The first quarter, when you don’t have Ayana Mitchell, you’re having to make up for that. I thought Alexis Hyder really established herself early for us as that player and we were able to establish a lead. We talked about defensively, we want to hold our opponents to a point a minute and we were well on our defensive target. We wanted to be two points or more a minute and we were doing that. When Hyder picked up that second foul early in the first half, now you don’t have Ayana Mitchell and you don’t have Alexis Hyder and our offense will struggle and it did. A lot of credit to Monroe for really making shots. They really did a nice job of making those jumpers and those three balls on the road. It kept momentum to them. When we were able to turn them over and convert, that’s when we are good. We’ve got to look at when we are not converting, what play action do we need to call and what do we need to run because sometimes we don’t know how to shift gears and we just go all in and all out and it just comes up a goose egg. Once we settled in a little bit and we realized we didn’t have numbers and we weren’t forcing things, then we were able to at least play some of our action and get our girls to the free throw line.
On Raigyne Moncrief …
“Raigyne Moncrief has shown time and time again that she’s that player that can win basketball games for you. Like you said, she can go 0-7 in her first shot attempts and then finish the game for us to send it into overtime. She’s also that player whose stat line is not only filled with field goal attempts and makes and misses but also her ability to rebound the basketball. She had seven defensive boards for us and that’s huge. She came up with some critical steals for us to changed the momentum of the game and the fact that she gets us into our offense and she’s able to give Rina some relief, that helps us too. So she does things that don’t necessarily show up in the stats sheet.
On steals …
“We are turning the ball over quite a bit. I think it’s coming because we are pressing too much. I think we are rushing and we are trying to hit the homerun right out the gate instead of just trying to get to first base. We are going to go back again and watch all of our turnovers but it’s pretty spread out. We are getting some turnovers too on offensive fouls. I think we’ve got to kind of eliminate those as well but a lot of different people are handling the basketball in our offense. When you run the ball and the reversal and then to backdoors and to hand offs and stuff like that, many people touch the basketball so we’ve got to work on getting that ball security and trying not to force things.”
LSU Guard Raigyne Moncrief
On shooting…
“My teammates kept motivating me. I was forcing it at the beginning. I wasn’t letting the game come to me. And, then I had the opportunity to score when I needed to score.”
On hitting the game tying buzzer beater…
“There was like five seconds left. (Guard) Rina (Hill) was taking it up, and coach was screaming ‘give Ray the ball.’ So, Rina gave me the ball and I was able to do a pull-up. I felt confident in that shot. That was probably the best shot attempt I took all game. Everything else was forced.”
On getting in rhythm with a lot of fouls…
“I think that’s where focus comes in because a lot of our possessions were stopped. It was just a mental thing having to stay locked in a game. Every time we had one of those, we had to get together just to talk about it.”
LSU Forward Alexis Hyder
On taking double teams…
“I wouldn’t say it’s difficult because my teammates are great spot up shooters. So, it’s about vision. If you double-team me that’s fine, I have great shooters. I appreciated the double-team and felt honored. It just helps my teammates have the opportunity to get good looks.”
On hitting free throws…
“When we went on the road, it was a key factor for us. We needed to make free throws, and we didn’t make free throws. It was key that we make free throws at home. We shot about 80 percent. That helped us out a lot.”
On coming from behind to win…
“Losing was not an option. We were not supposed to lose. We had to battle down on defense. We had to make things happen on the defensive and offensive end. After coach got into us, we kind of had a blank moment. We were letting this team come back and beat us. We had to make some changes. We all had to calm down and play defense and do something offensively.”
ULM HEAD COACH JEFF DOW
Opening Statement…
“I thought obviously it was a great effort by our team. We showed a lot of resiliency throughout the game. As I told them in the locker room, this game should serve as a springboard for bigger and better things for our program. Obviously for a team like us and a team that is still in rebuilding mode, we are picked to finish ninth in the Sun Belt and if I’m not mistaken LSU is picked to finish ninth in the SEC. I think we opened some eyes, as we should have. It’s still very disappointing. The two things that come up huge are the 27 turnovers that we had and 14-for -27 from the free-throw line. We had our chances to put the game away, but we made some mistakes in the first 38 minutes of the game. I certainly don’t mean any disrespect to LSU, but I feel like we handed them that game. That game was ours. I told one of my assistants at one point I looked up at the score and felt extremely confident. Late in the regulation, I thought we had it. We just didn’t quite finish it. This will be a learning experience for our team, especially with a lot of our younger players and newcomers. I am very proud of our effort today.”
On how he adjusted to LSU’s half court press…
“It was more about making sure we kept our spacing. Their length gave us trouble obviously. At every position we are probably giving up two or three inches. It makes those passes a little more difficult to throw over the top. One of the things we emphasized to our guards was prepare to attack on the dribble because you’re not always going to be able to pass it over them or around them. We had to use our quickness. I thought we did a pretty good job of that. We didn’t necessarily attack it and go get layups out of it by any means, but maybe we soften them up a little bit. Those were the two big things, better spacing and doing a better job attacking off the bounce.”
ULM Guard Aundrea Davis
On considering today’s game against LSU a moral victory…
“I do. Coming in, we were the under-dogs, just with our standing alone. To be able to stay with them, lead the game at one point, fight and almost beat them, it’s good for us. Going into our conference, we are going to have that confidence we need to finish.”
Game Notes
This was the first overtime game for the Lady Tigers since a 71-69 double-overtime win at Mississippi State last season on Jan. 15.
LSU has won its last four-straight overtime games. The Lady Tigers’ last loss in OT was to Tulane, 66-64, during the 2012-13 season.
The Lady Tigers are 35-5 in home openers dating back to the 1976-77 season.
Coach Nikki Fargas is 4-1 in home openers in her five seasons at the helm of the LSU program.
LSU has won the last four meetings against ULM. ULM’s last victory in the series was in the second matchup of the 1983-84 season.
Senior Anne Pedersen has started 19 consecutive games dating back to the midpoint of last season.
Junior Raigyne Moncrief has started 22 consecutive games for the Lady Tigers. She has posted at least one rebound and scored in all 64 games she has played in.
Up Next
It’s back out on the road for the Lady Tigers following the ULM matchup. LSU travels to Little Rock, Ark., to face UALR on Wednesday at 7:15 p.m.
LSU’s next home game will be on Saturday, Nov. 21, at 2 p.m. against Long Beach State.
For all of the latest news and information on Lady Tiger basketball, visit www.LSUsports.net/womensbasketball. Fans also can follow the program on its social media outlets at www.Facebook.com/LSUwbkb, @LSUwbkb and @NikkiCaldwell on Twitter, @LSUwbkb and @LSUNikkiCaldwell on Instagram.