By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — There are times when LSU women’s head basketball coach Kim Mulkey enjoys a quiet arena or gym.
Like when her team plays on the road and is beating the snot out of the home squad, such as Monday night when it took LSU just 15 minutes to build a 20-point lead at Texas A&M.
“It was great because the Aggies were quiet,” Mulkey said. “We didn’t give them much to get excited about really. That’s what you try to do when you go on the road. Get the home crowd out of it by keeping the lead and just do what you got to do to keep from getting excited.”
Sophomore guard Flau’jae Johnson carried the Tigers in the first half when she scored 13 of her game-total 20 points and junior forward Aneesah Morrow hit 19 of her game-high 25 points in the second half as the Tigers roared to an 81-58 SEC victory.
The LSU portion of the crowd of 6,908 got rowdy as Johnson and Morrow dug deep to carry the Tigers for the last 5:43 of the third quarter when the Aggies suckered Tigers’ forward Angel Reese into her second, third and fourth fouls with physical, emotional play.
LSU (22-4 overall, 9-3 SEC) was leading at 49-18 when Reese picked up a second personal foul and by was hit with a technical (which counted as her third personal) on the same play with 6:15 left in the third quarter.
She and A&M’s Kay Kay Green (who also got a technical) trash-talked after Reese was whistled for a personal trying to block a shot by A&M’s Maliyah Johnson.
Thirty-two seconds later, Reese was grabbed going up for a shot just in front of her basket. When she and an Aggie defender fell to the floor and somehow Reese was called for her fourth foul, Mulkey exploded with a tongue-lashing of an officiating crew which spent a large portion of the night reviewing call after call after call on the replay monitor.
“I’m a coach and we want to get the call right,” Mulkey said. “But it seemed like they (the officiating crew) went to the monitor too much. Sometimes, it’s just too much.”
With Reese on the bench, A&M outscored LSU 17-8 the rest of the quarter to exit the third period trailing by 21 at 57-36. But Reese was back in the game to start the fourth quarter – she had 5 points and 3 rebounds in the final 10 minutes to finish with 13 points and 10 rebounds – and the Tigers got back on course.
Janiah Barker led A&M with 21 points and 9 rebounds while Alcha Coulibaly added 16 points and 6 rebounds. The Aggies played without starting point guard Endiya Rogers who was sidelined with a knee injury.
“It’s going to take some time for us to figure out how to play with that our point guard,” said A&M coach Joni Taylor, whose team fell to 17-8 overall and 5-8 in the SEC. “Credit to LSU for how they came out. We were really bad in the first half.”
The Tigers return home for a Thursday 8 p.m. game against Auburn. LSU lost at Auburn 87-62 on Jan. 14.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com