BATON ROUGE — The LSU women’s basketball team opened up Southeastern Conference play on Thursday night with an 92-72 victory over Missouri in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
LSU began the game with back-to-back buckets by Aneesah Morrow and Angel Reese but Mizzou answered with a Hayley Frank layup and a three-pointer by Ashton Judd.
The two teams would trade buckets until LSU went on a mini-run. After a layup by Reese with 4:03 left in the opening quarter, LSU held a seven-point lead.
Missouri chipped away and outscored LSU 8-2 the rest of the quarter to cut the lead down to one point.
Missouri’s Frank drained a three-pointer to give her team a two-point lead to start the second but LSU answered with a layup by Morrow. The visiting Tigers would lead by as much as three twice in the period and held a 32-31 lead with 3:55 left in the second quarter.
LSU finished the first half strong by closing out the quarter on an 8-0 run which included going 6-for-6 from the free throw line. At the break, LSU led 39-32.
LSU pushed its lead to 11 with a layup by Flau’jae Johnson and a jumper by Mikaylah Williams. A few moments later Johnson drained a three-pointer, stole the ball, and then went coast-to-coast for a layup and a free throw.
With 5:20 left in the third, LSU held a 58-41 lead.
In the fourth, Missouri was never able to truly make a comeback as LSU kept them at arm’s distance as they kept the lead around 20 for most of the quarter.
BIG NUMBER: 52
LSU dominated down low as the purple and gold Tigers scored 52 points in the paint, while Missouri managed only 32 points in the paint in Thursday’s conference tilt.
PLAYERS OF THE GAME: ANEESAH MORROW & FLAU’JAE JOHNSON
Morrow paced the Tigers with 25 points on 11-of-17 shooting and also had a double-double with 10 rebounds. Johnson meanwhile had 24 points on 11-of-17 shooting while pulling down five rebounds.
UP NEXT: LSU (14-1, 1-0 SEC) will travel to Oxford to take on Ole Miss on Sunday. Tip is set for 2 p.m. and the game can be heard live on Mustang 107.1 FM.