BATON ROUGE — Efficient scoring around the basket and rebounding helped the LSU women’s basketball team defeat the Ole Miss Rebels, 76-57, Thursday evening at the Maravich Center.
With the win, the Lady Tigers snapped a four-game losing streak and improved to 7-8 overall; 1-1 in SEC play. The Lady Tigers also earned their fourth consecutive victory against Ole Miss at the PMAC.
Sophomore Jenna Deemer, who came in to the game 2-of-18 from the field in the last three games, scored 19 points off a 6-of-7 effort from the field. The 19 points tied a season high. She was 4-of-4 from the free-throw line and hit all three of the three-point shots she took in the game.
Akilah Bethel and Alexis Hyder scored 16 points and 15 points, respectively. Hyder grabbed 10 rebounds in the win for her fourth double-double effort of the season. Deemer, Bethel and Hyder all came in off the bench and led LSU’s bench effort of 50 points, a season high for the Lady Tigers. This was also the first game that LSU had three players score 15 or more points in a game.
For the game, LSU shot 49 percent from the floor, 50 percent from the beyond the arc and 71 percent from the free throw line. The 49 percent (28-of-57) mark from the field was the second-highest shooting effort for the Lady Tigers this season. LSU controlled the glass, outrebounding the Rebels, 45-32. They also scored 26 points off 18 Ole Miss turnovers. The Rebels tallied just 16 points off 20 LSU miscues.
Ole Miss (9-6; 1-1) shot 30 percent from the floor, 26 percent from three-point range and 55 percent from the free-throw line for the game. Coming in to the contest, the Rebels averaged nearly 77 points per game. Kelsey Briggs led the Rebels in scoring with 11 points, followed by Alissa Alston with 10 points.
The Lady Tigers scored efficiently in the third quarter, getting to the free throw line, earning layups in transition and converted on field goals from the floor. LSU led by many as 10 before Ole Miss scored three baskets to cut the Lady Tigers lead to 42-35. With 4:43 to play, Deemer hit two three-pointers plus baskets from Shanice Norton and Hyder gave the Lady Tigers a 55-42 lead going into the fourth quarter. LSU didn’t let up in the fourth quarter and outscored Ole Miss, 21-15.
The two teams exchanged baskets for nearly first six minutes of the second quarter. After a media timeout with 4:43 remaining, the Lady Tigers went on a 10-3 run to take a 33-26 lead at the half.
In the first half, LSU shot 40 percent (12-of-30) from the floor and limited Ole Miss to just 28 percent (9-of-32), their second-lowest field-goal percentage of a first half. The Rebels were 4-of-18 from three-point range in the first half. LSU also held the rebounding advantage, 25-20.
The Rebels scored first in the contest. The Lady Tigers then went on an 8-0 run and held the Rebels to two points for nearly four minutes into the first quarter. Then, Sessom and Alston scored two quick field goals for the Rebels to cut the deficit to 8-7. Following a timeout with 4:31 remaining, the Lady Tigers took a 16-9 lead but the Rebels fought back. Madinah Muhammad and Erika Sisk combined for six points to cut the Lady Tigers lead to 16-15 at the end of the quarter.
The Lady Tigers return to the Maravich Center on Sunday with a 3 p.m. game against Texas A&M. Texas A&M is 11-4 overall; 1-1 in SEC action, following a 67-61 loss to Arkansas on the road Thursday evening.
The first 500 fans to come out to the Sunday matchup against Texas A&M will receive a LSU Women’s Basketball cell phone wallet. Following the game, juniors Rina Hill, Jasmine Rhodes and Raigyne Moncrief will be available for autographs.
Post-Game Quotes
Ole Miss Head Coach Matt Insell
Opening Statement …
“I spent five years at the University of Kentucky and I had watched the men’s game between Kentucky and LSU on Tuesday night and I told myself that I did not want to feel like John Calipari did sitting here after the game, and here I am. All credit to LSU. We did not come out ready to play; we didn’t play with energy or enthusiasm. We did not guard, and that is something that we pride ourselves on. We also pride ourselves on turning teams over and denying passing lanes and doing early work and having great ball pressure and we did not do any of that. I am going to have to go back and watch the film and figure out why that happened, and what LSU did to make that not happen. And once we fix that we have to get ready to play a tough Florida team on Sunday. When playing a program like LSU that has the history that it does, I told our players that they are not having a great year, but they are going to play. Nikki is going to prepare this team and we have to play against them.”
On turning over the ball and not scoring …
“We got real passive. We shot 31 three pointers, and that is not us. And although we made eight, we shot 31 and that is not who we are. We are a team that drives to the rim, and a team that gets baskets at the rim and a team that plays all out. We didn’t do that tonight. We had to settle for long jump shots and it was their defensive effort, but a lot of it was just us. We could not make those tough plays and not playing the way we are used to playing. That is the disappointing thing that I am taking from the game tonight. We practiced like that on Tuesday but that was not how we played. I warned them on Tuesday that we have to practice hard because this team is a beast and we come out there and everyone on our team had two fouls, including me, my assistants, my strength coach, my sports information director and even my bus driver.”
On not being able to get into a rhythm…
“There was no rhythm. We have been playing like that all year. So we have to do a better job on adjusting. My solution is playing zone defense for games on TV.”
On rebounding …
“By watching the game everyone could tell that they wanted the ball more and we are a great rebounding team. We are leading the nation in offensive rebounds with 14 and averaging 22 a game and LSU just wanted the ball more. We will definitely want it tomorrow in practice.”
LSU Guard Jenna Deemer
On playing as a team for 40 minutes…
“Yes, we talked about how we struggle coming from halftime to the third quarter usually, but tonight we knew we had to come out. We were ahead but we didn’t want to get complacent. We need to keep pushing and keep fighting.”
On her performance …
“Just hustle plays. Coach always says, ‘Go into the locker room with momentum. Momentum is big.’ We need to score even when we’re up.”
On stopping Ole Miss in the lane…
“Yes, that’s what our defense gives up. Coach says when one person has the ball, it’s not just my job to stop her, it’s all five of us to stop her together.”
On getting back defensively despite the turnovers…
“Some of our turnovers were travels and stuff so it was a dead ball but for the most part we got back on the loose balls.”
LSU Forward Alexis Hyder
On playing as a team for 40 minutes…
“Our main focus was not to become content. Even if we’re up thirteen, keep going and keep playing hard basketball. We did not want to just relax.”
On practice this week and the focus on rebounding …
“Rebounding was very, very important this week in practice. It was important that we got box outs and rebounds during the game especially since Ole Miss is leading the SEC with offensive boards.”
On stopping Ole Miss in the lane…
“They thrive off of penetration and they didn’t have it so they were just settling for the three pointers. Thankfully they weren’t falling and we protected most of the shots.”
On getting back defensively…
“It was about being family. If Jenna throws the ball away or I throw the ball away, it’s important I have her back. It’s important I rush down to make sure they don’t get that layup. We just wanted to hold each other accountable.”
LSU HEAD COACH NIKKI FARGAS
Opening statement …
“This was a great team win. I thought our team really took the game plan and the things that they wrote on the board prior to the game and they applied it. We talked about taking care of the basketball and for the most part we didn’t have a lot of those live ball turnovers and our hustle to recover was there and that’s something that we can move forward and know that we can be that team that can not only score the basketball and have the potential to do so but we also turned over a very good Ole Miss team and we were able to get our running game going. Our defensive effort, you can see a difference in how we were trying to play as a unit and that’s what we are going to try to hold our hat on is the fact that we can control the tempo of the game through our board play and we also can control it through the way we hustle and I saw a lot of players on the floor diving after loose balls. We had some jump balls; those things all stick out as well as the fact that when you look at our assist column, we had 16 assists on the night. That’s a team that’s sharing the basketball and is really trying to make another teammate shine.”
On the defensive scheme …
“Our primary defense was a two-three and the times it turned into a three-two look and when you have man to man principles, we started going with cutters and things like that and got mixed up a little bit but the effort to recover out of it made it very difficult for them to get a lot of easy looks but our defense was primarily a two-three.”
On Jenna Deemer’s half-time play …
“We have to be that team that will get on the floor, that will not quit on the play, that will continue to hustle. I saw us on the floor more this game than I have probably the entire season combined. I remember a play where there was a ball going out of bounds and I did not think that Norton could get to it but she hustled and ran almost to the concession stand but the hustle was what we have been missing and tonight we hustled. The excitement to play as a team was there and obviously when you have Jenna (Deemer) and Alexis (Hyder) being as efficient as they both were on the offensive end, that takes a lot of stress and pressure off of our other kids.”
On lineup change…
“The thing is that our starters have done exactly what we’ve wanted them to do since I’ve changed the lineup. They’ve won the battle to start the game when we go at the half or first quarter and we are up, then our starters have done what they needed to do to solidify that we won that first five minute segment. Now we have a punch coming off the bench when you bring those three off and the other teams may not be as deep. We aren’t a deep team but when you have those three, that’s a pretty impressive bench so if our starters can continue to do what they are doing, get us off to a great start and they did that in the Alabama game. That crew got us off to a 20-5 start and tonight they did the same thing. Obviously Deemer and Hyder and Bethel took over and really separated us.”
On the turnovers …
“I’m okay with the fact that we hustled after the turnover but we had some turnovers that were dead ball and we talked about that. We can’t have live ball turnovers and then we are trying to run people down, but we also had hustle plays to deflect the basketball or go and challenge the person going to the rim. I liked that in the first half we only had eight turnovers. The second half we had 12 but we’ve still got to make sure that we keep that number down.”
On rebounds …
“I saw a team that played and tried to really battle as a unit and we talked about how a family watches and takes care of each other and tonight we had that. We had a team that when the ball is shifted to one side of the floor, we had all five people guarding the basketball and that’s how we want to operate from here on out. We don’t just allow one player to have to guard the best player or the best rebounder. I saw us double boxing on the weak side and it was maybe two guards down there, really trying to hold off their post game. I saw a team that really hustled and ran down some of those 50-50 balls but the effort to win tonight and the effort to do ‘what is needed’ or is needed, that’s what the acronym W.I.N for us means.”
“It’s been an uphill battle and obviously we’ve played some good teams along the way and we’ve lost some games that we could have won had we played with this same level of passion, intensity and hard work. Maybe the outcome would have been different but we are where we are supposed to be at this point and now it’s up to us to take the things that we did tonight and challenge ourselves to be better on Sunday.”