TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The LSU women’s basketball team bounced back after two tough losses to defeat Alabama on Sunday by a score of 62-56.
Khayla Pointer led the Lady Tigers with a career-high 26 points while adding six rebounds and three steals.
Faustine Aifuwa had another productive game, scoring 11 points and grabbing eight boards. Ayana Mitchell rounds out the trio scoring in double-digits with 10 points and had six rebounds.
“Our kids hung tough,” said LSU head coach Nikki Fargas. “We changed up our defensive scheme. We really wanted to make sure that we’re not leaving players wide open. We mixed up playing some of our man, some of our matchup. Our team did a nice job of being aggressive.”
LSU trailed by two at the close of the first quarter, but regrouped to come back and outscore Alabama 20-10 in the second quarter and led by as much as 11 points.
Pointer took over LSU’s offense in the second quarter scoring 13 of her 26 points.
“For her to give us that type of performance in the paint, that set the tone for us,” Fargas said of Pointer’s career day.
After the loss to Kentucky, Fargas wanted to emphasize scoring points in the paint and not settling for jump shots. LSU scored 40 points in the paint compared to Alabama’s 18.
The Lady Tigers led by eight at halftime and continued to build on their lead after the break.
Aifuwa and Pointer came out and hit back-to-back field goals to put LSU up by 12 to get the momentum going.
Alabama started to take a crack at LSU’s lead in the fourth quarter. Alabama made 10 free throws in the fourth quarter and cut LSU’s lead to three with under a minute left in the game.
“Our team was very steady down the stretch,” Fargas said. “We were able to still disrupt them defensively.”
Pointer scored a clutch jumper followed by two free throws from Rakell Spencer to secure the win.
LSU’s defense forced 18 turnovers and in turn scored 20 points off of those turnovers.
“We played extremely hard for 40 minutes,” Fargas said.
LSU will take a short hiatus before travelling to Knoxville to face Tennessee on Sunday, Jan. 27 with tip-off set for 12 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.
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