Angel Reese had 10 points, 19 rebounds and three steals and LSU began the defense of its national championship by shaking off Rice 70-60 in the first round of the Women’s NCAA Tournament on Friday in Baton Rouge, La.
Aneesah Morrow scored 15 points and Flau’jae Johnson and Mikaylah Williams had 14 apiece for the No. 3 seed Tigers (29-5). They will face No. 11 seed Middle Tennessee, which upset No. 6 seed Louisville 71-69, on Sunday.
Williams said of the Tigers getting a tougher-than-expected test, “It’s always good to get your feet wet early so we don’t get shook later in the tournament. It’s not how we wanted to start because we had higher expectations for ourselves. So just going back to the drawing board and picking up all the sloppy mistakes.”
Those errors included 24 turnovers, six more than the Owls committed.
LSU coach Kim Mulkey said, “I just thought it was a feeling about us, that maybe lack of urgency in thinking that you could get beat. But at the end of the day, you have 24 turnovers, you’re going to look bad, and 24 turnovers — it almost became comical because I thought, ‘Are they in a contest to see who has the most turnovers?'”
Destiny Jackson scored 15 points, Malia Fisher had 13 before fouling out, and Emily Klaczek and Sussy Ngulefac scored 10 apiece to lead the No. 14 seed Owls (19-15).
Rice coach Lindsay Edmonds said, “We came in here, and we fought for four quarters. We won two of those four quarters against the defending national champion. I thought we did a lot of great things, but the main thing that I’m proud of is that we never for one second quit or looked like we didn’t believe that we belonged in this game.”
LSU’s giveaways led to a five-point disadvantage in points off turnovers, but that was offset by the Tigers making 22 of 31 free throws compared to 6 of 8 for the Owls.
Rice pulled within one point on three occasions early in the third quarter before a 3-pointer and a fastbreak layup by Johnson helped the Tigers take a five-point lead.
Jackson made a 3-pointer, but Reese made her first field goal and Williams added a 3-pointer and two free throws to help LSU open a 53-42 lead at the end of the third quarter.
Jackson’s triple started the fourth-quarter scoring and the Owls got as close as seven before Hailey Van Lith answered with a jumper and Morrow followed with a layup for a 57-46 lead with 5:45 to play.
Rice climbed within six three times in the last two minutes, but didn’t get any closer.
LSU scored the first seven points of the game before going quiet for a while. Van Lith made a 3-pointer and Johnson added a layup to give the Tigers a 12-6 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Morrow made consecutive layups to help the Tigers take their biggest lead of the half at 28-19. Klaczek made two 3-pointers to help the Owls trim the lead to 30-27 at halftime.
–Field Level Media
