BATON ROUGE, La. — Despite a double-double of 10 points and 12 rebounds by junior Alexis Hyder and a career-tying 15 points by freshman Shanice Norton, the Lady Tigers fell to Georgia, 58-47, here at the PMAC in the annual Gold Game Sunday afternoon. With the loss, the Lady Tigers dropped to 8-17 overall; 2-10 in the SEC, while Georgia improves to 19-6 overall; 7-5 in the league.
Hyder was 4-of-9 from the field in leading the Lady Tigers with her eighth double-double of the season before she fouled out with 5:35 left in the game. She also registered three assists and a steal. Of her 12 rebounds, seven were offensive boards. Hyder has recorded back-to-back double-doubles three times this season.
Norton, who came into today’s game averaging just 5.0 points per contest, scored 15 points primarily on free-throw shots. She was 9-of-12 from the charity stripe and 3-of-5 from the field. Her nine free throws set a new career mark. Her previous high was five against Auburn earlier this month. She also registered five rebounds, all of which were defensive boards, and tied Akilah Bethel for the team lead in steals with two.
The Lady Tigers struggled from the free-throw line, hitting just 15 of their 26 attempts today. LSU missed eight of 11 attempts just in the third quarter alone. Georgia did not fare much better from the line, hitting half of their 16 attempts.
“It (missing free throws) plays a big factor because we have to change what we’ve been doing,” said LSU head coach Nikki Fargas. “We have to change our mindset when we get to the free-throw line. I think we are getting there enough times in the basketball game, but if we are not knocking those free throws down, it plays to the favor of the team that’s fouling you because you’re not making them pay by putting points on the board. To get there 26 times and leave 11 points on the board with the difference of the game being 11 points, it’s definitely a glaring statistic.”
Junior Rina Hill contributed nine points for the Lady Tigers, while Bethel tallied seven points. Anne Pedersen and Jasmine Rhodes chipped in four points and two points, respectively.
Georgia outscored LSU, 28-14, in the paint and also scored 15 points off 17 Lady Tiger turnovers. LSU out-rebounded UGA, 38-36, and managed 12 points off 15 Georgia miscues, in their first loss to the Bulldogs at the PMAC since the 2000-01 season. LSU had previously won the last eight-straight games played in Baton Rouge.
Georgia scored 15 of their 25 points off three-pointers in the first half and LSU, without their top outside shooting threat Jenna Deemer for the ninth-straight game, was 0-for-3 on treys. They did not attempt any additional three-pointers in the second half. The Bulldogs held the lead the entire first half, though the Lady Tigers were able to tie the game at 6-6 with 5:05 left in the first quarter off a layup by Hyder. Hyder had the chance to put LSU ahead with the three-point play, but missed the free-throw attempt. In the second quarter, LSU was able to get to within one, 14-13, on a jumper by Shanice Norton, but could not shift the momentum in their favor. Georgia took their first free-throw attempt with 3:14 left in the second quarter and missed both shots. The Lady Tigers were 6-of-9 from the charity stripe in the first half and went into the locker room down, 25-22, at the half.
Hyder led LSU at the half with eight points and nine rebounds. She had seven rebounds just in the first quarter alone. LSU held the 21-14 rebounding advantage at the half. The Lady Tigers were 8-of-25 (32 percent) from the field, while Georgia was 10-of-25(40 percent) from the field in the first half.
LSU rolled off an 8-0 run through the end of the second quarter and into the third quarter and took their first and only lead of the game, 26-25, off a jumper by Rina Hill with 8:39 left in the third period. UGA then used a 7-0 run of its own to push the lead in their favor, 32-26. Hyder had to spend a better part of the third quarter on the bench after picking up her fourth foul at the 5:17 mark. LSU still had a chance to close the deficit, but missed six free throws in the final five minutes of the quarter, to end the third down, 42-35.
Georgia used a 10-2 run at the start of the fourth quarter to jump to a 52-37 advantage with 6:14 remaining in the game. Hyder, who had scored just one bucket in the fourth quarter, was whistled for her fifth foul with 5:35 left. The Lady Tigers hit all six of their free-throw attempts in the fourth quarter but 11 points was as close as they could get in the final minute of the game.
Caliya Robinson and Shacobia Barbee both recorded double-doubles for the Bulldogs. Robinson had a team-high 19 points and 11 rebounds, while Barbee posted 14 points and 10 rebounds. Barbee led Georgia with five steals, and Robinson led the way with four blocked shots.
The Lady Tigers have four games against current nationally-ranked foes remaining on their regular-season schedule. LSU travels to Texas A&M for a rematch next Thursday before returning to the PMAC to host the Tennessee Lady Vols on Sunday, Feb. 21, in the annual Play4Kay “Pink” game. The Lady Tigers will face Florida at home (Feb. 25) and South Carolina on the road (Feb. 28) in the final week of conference action.
Post-Game Quotes
Georgia Head Coach Joni Taylor
Opening Statement…
“LSU is a really good team, and I credit them. They play with such effort, and they work so hard. They do a great job defensively. We knew that it was going to be tough here. We haven’t won since 2001, and there’s a reason why. They’re really tough to beat in the PMAC, but I credit our players for being ready. We told them it would be an all hands on deck kind of game, and Shanea (Armbrister) gave us really good minutes. She hit some shots for us early when Tiaria (Griffin) was struggling, so we threw her around in different positions. We were fortunate to come out with the win today.”
On negatives from the win…
“Going into the first media timeout, LSU had seven offensive rebounds. In the timeout we said, ‘Guys this is what we talked about. Don’t foul them. Don’t let them get offensive boards. We’re doing both of those things.’ Then, when we got to the free throw line, we didn’t convert. We finished 50 percent from the line, which is just not good enough in this league. For the type of close games that we’re going to be in, we have to make sure that we take advantage of those easy opportunities.”
On Shacobia Barbee…
“We asked her to guard Rina Hill, then we moved her over to Anne Pedersen, then at one point, she was guarding Alexis Hyder. She does whatever we ask her to do on both ends of the floor, and she was able to get in and get some offensive rebounds for us. She got some steals. She just really changed the game early. Today, we didn’t come out with the effort and energy that I thought we should have to start. There was a moment when she looked at her teammates and said, ‘Come on guys. Let’s go pick it up.’ That’s what we’ve been asking her to do. To see her do that, uninitiated from our staff, was really good.”
On Caliya Robinson…
“The first time, she comes down, she leads the break and we score. Second time, she gets it and kind of panics, turns it over. She has to be consistent in those things. All of her points came in the paint today. When she first got to Georgia she wanted to be a face-up player and shoot from the perimeter, and she has the skill to do that. However, in games like this, we can really take advantage of her size.”
On the season’s turnaround…
“We’re really resilient, and the credit goes to our players. They could have hung their heads and thrown in the towel, but they didn’t. They stayed the course. We have people stepping up, and our leaders are continuing to be consistent every day. The credit goes to this team for doing what we asked.”
Georgia Forward Caliya Robinson
On beating LSU in the Maravich Center…
“The emotion I’m feeling right now is excitement. I’m just happy that we won, and we were able to come back and beat them (LSU) after a tough loss (to them) that we shouldn’t have lost.”
On her personal performance…
“Today, I had my third double-double and my team played great. It was exciting, and I’m happy to have another double-double. It’s just more to come.”
On helping the team pull away to get a win…
“When I come in the game I have to play hard. I know that when I come in to the game and have to guard somebody who’s extremely good and extremely bigger than me, I have to play hard, and I have to work hard. I knew guarding (Alexis) Hyder was going to be a challenge, but I did well sometimes. Sometimes I did horribly guarding her. Altogether, I did a pretty good job in stopping her and getting her fouls and getting her fouled out. On the other end, she could’ve guarded me better than she did, but I guess she didn’t want to foul.”
On playing on the road…
“Playing on the road is a challenge, but I think if you’re in your comfort zone and you play well, none of that will affect you. The crowd doesn’t affect how I play. I will play how I play regardless of anything.”
LSU Head Coach Nikki Fargas
Opening Statement…
“It’s always tough to come back after a loss and look at some of the things we could have controlled. The areas of concern today that we kept putting on the board were that we had to have great effort and intensity. That’s through our defensive play. Our defense has been very good to us. It’s allowed us to be in ball games. We have to finish out the play. We have to finish with a box out, make it one-and-done. When Georgia separated itself, it was a matter of their teams’ intensity raising up and being able to not only push the basketball back at us but also scoring in the half-court against our zone. That gave them a lot of confidence. Offensively, we struggled, but that’s been something that we are going to continue to address. We have to make layups and free throws. If you look at the number of times we got to the free throw line, we got there 26 times. Our goal is to get there 20-plus times, but our goal is also to connect on every one of those free throws that were missed. We have to do a much better job of focusing in on those two areas.”
On the amount of missed free throws…
“It plays a big factor because we have to change what we’ve been doing. We have to change our mindset when we get to the free-throw line. I think we are getting there enough times in the basketball game, but if we are not knocking those free throws down, it plays to the favor of the team that’s fouling you because you’re not making them pay by putting points on the board. To get there 26 times and leave 11 points on the board with the difference of the game being 11 points, it’s definitely a glaring statistic.”
On what Georgia was running…
“The play action they were running, we had already scouted it. We were different. Our intensity and effort were a lot different than when we were at Georgia. We had a lot of opportunities tonight, especially in the third quarter to pull ahead and really make a run at them. Alexis Hyder gets into foul trouble, and there goes your best offensive player and your best defensive rebounder. She led our team in defensive boards. She was also our assist leader. You definitely lose a lot when Hyder is not on the floor. She has to be on the floor for us. It’s a must. It was addressed at halftime with her to make sure that she keeps herself in the game because that’s a good game plan to go at her. If you get her out, we are going to struggle even more.”
On traveling to Texas A&M next week…
“We have to go back to us being a very defensive-minded team because they have great scorers. You have Courtney (Walker) and Courtney (Williams). You sprinkle in the fact that they have an explosive post game. They’re playing very well. They are winning games, and there are a lot of emotions involved when the season starts to wind down…. I liked the score at the half when they played here. We held them to 15 points. I did not like the score in the second half though. If we can take that mindset and just be a competitor, just compete on every play, then we will have a great chance of winning on Thursday.”
LSU Guard Shanice Norton
On what allowed LSU to take the lead early in the third quarter…
“We were feeding off each other as a team and executing the little things like Coach has been telling us to do in practice. We brought that into the game.”
On her career-high scoring performance…
“It does feel good, but I still need to make sure I follow team rules on what we do defensively and contribute on both ends, continuing to play as a team player to help us pull out the win instead of having to trail behind teams.”
LSU Forward Alexis Hyder
On what allowed LSU to take the lead early in the third quarter…
“The defense picked up a little bit. We got a couple steals, which got us going, but then had a couple turnovers. The momentum switched really fast. We have to be able to hold our momentum once we get it.”
On winning the rebounding battle…
“Every game we intend on out-rebounding our opponent. That’s the big goal, especially getting defensive boards so they don’t get offensive boards. We have to be able to finish on our end. Whenever they went on their run, it was because they got boards, so it makes a difference in defensive boards.”
On sitting out with foul trouble…
“It’s frustrating. You can’t be a repeat offender of the same thing. You cannot continue to get in foul trouble… I feel like I let my team down in that sense. I have to be responsible enough to not get in foul trouble. To me, it’s not an excuse. It’s very frustrating to be sitting on the bench knowing that I need to be more mature and not get in foul trouble.”