By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – After the first 21 minutes of Sunday’s NCAA Tournament second-round regional women’s basketball game between No. 3 seed LSU and No. 11 seed Middle Tennessee in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, it finally happened.
The hurricane known as the defending national champions blew ashore.
“Mikaylah (Williams) started doin’ Mikaylah things,” LSU sophomore guard Flau’jae Johnson said, “Nees (Aneesah Morrow) started doin’ Nees things, Hailey (Van Lith) lockin’ up their best player, Angel (Reese) doin’ Angel things. . .everything went how it supposed to go.”
Johnson, Reese, Morrow and Williams combined for 47 of the Tigers’ 51 second-half points as LSU flipped a 9-point deficit just a minute into the second half into an 83-56 victory over the Blue Raiders to advance to the Sweet 16.
LSU will likely play next Saturday in the Albany Regional 2 semifinals against the winner of Monday’s UCLA-Creighton game. Sweet 16 game schedules will be set no later than Tuesday morning.
The Tigers’ smothering second-half defense – they limited Middle Tennessee to 27.6 percent from the field (8 of 29) and forced 9 turnovers leading to a 16-0 whitewash in points off turnovers – ignited LSU after it exited the first half trailing the Conference USA champions 36-32.
“I thought our energy, I thought our aggressiveness, I thought our effort in the second half wore them (MTSU) down,” said LSU’s Kim Mulkey, whose team improved to 30-5, her 12th 30-win season in 24 years as a head coach. “Even when they got good looks, they didn’t make them. We rebounded better. We helped each other defensively better. We were running in transition at all positions in the second half.”
Johnson had 21 points and Morrow had 19 points and 13 rebounds. Both kept the Tigers from going completely under in the first half.
LSU forward Angel Reese stumbled through a first half scoring just 6 points and missing 5 layups. She scored 14 in the second half to finish with 20 points and 11 rebounds.
“My coach pulled me aside and said `I need you, Angel,’ and I didn’t want to let her down at that point and my teammates,” Reese said. “I had to get down and be the (SEC) Player of the Year, I’ve got to do what it takes defensively and offensively. I’ve got to duck my head down and get in the paint.”
Bossier City native Williams, the SEC Freshman of the Year, seemed fully healthy after foot problems caused her to miss the last three of four games before the NCAA tourney. She scored 16 points (including 2 of 5 3-pointers) and grabbed 6 rebounds.
“Everybody was on at the same time,” Williams said of the Tigers’ second half. “That’s a scary LSU team when everybody is defending, everybody is rebounding and everybody is running in transition.”
Middle Tennessee, which had a 20-game win streak snapped, was as good as advertised. The Blue Raiders (30-5), who beat Tennessee by 11 points in December, weren’t fazed by the crowd of 12,632 proving LSU a huge homecourt advantage.
They stayed disciplined in their offense to the end, an attack orchestrated by MTSU senior guard Savannah Wheeler. Conference USA Player of the Year Wheeler had 21 points (on 8 of 24 field goals including 1 of 8 3’s) and 7 assists.
She was guarded mostly by Van Lith and Last Tear-Poa, and some by Johnson, who told her teammates at halftime they “have to cut the head off the snake” referring to Wheeler.
“They run a lot of stuff through her,” Van Lith said of Wheeler. “She’s like Steph Curry. She never quits moving. Even when she gives the ball up, she’s coming off two down screens. Our post players did a great job of helping guard the ball screens. Our defense catapulted everything in our second-half run.”
The Tigers also feasted on the Blue Raiders’ lack of depth in the second half. LSU’s transition offense and more aggressive mindset forced 18 Middle Tennessee State fouls in the final 20 minutes when LSU made 22 of 30 free throws.
The Blue Raiders, who previously had four players foul out a combined seven times this season, had starters Ta’Mia Scott, Anastasiia Boldyreva and Courtney Whitson foul out against the Tigers. LSU made 26 of 37 free throws on the day while Middle Tennessee was 6 of 9.
While Blue Raiders’ head coach Rick Insell wasn’t happy about the free throw discrepancy, he was thoroughly impressed with LSU.
“If they decide to play the rest of the year like they did the second half, they’re going to be tough,” Insell said. “I’ve watched them play a lot. I’ve watched a lot of film on them. That second half was about as good as I’ve seen them play this year.”
“If they decide to do that, they’re going to have another chance to hang another flag up. They got good players. They got a good coaching staff. They got what it takes.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com