BATON ROUGE, La. (WGNO) — In Head Coach Kim Mulkey’s first exhibition game coaching at LSU, the Tigers took the lead early and never looked back as they defeated the Langston Lady Lions 112-48 Saturday afternoon in the PMAC.
“The game went about as I anticipated,” Coach Mulkey said. “Turnovers are always horrible, and that has to get better, and we will clean that up. The second thing I look at is field goal percentage defense, how we are guarding people out there, and how we keep it where we want it. Lastly, how do we score points? We have basically the same team with a few added pieces, how do we score points? I think you saw, we are going to score by rebounding the ball.”
LSU will host another exhibition on Thursday at 6 p.m. against Loyola which will be free for fans to attend. The Tigers will officially open their season on Tuesday, November 9 at 11 a.m. against Nicholls in their annual field trip game.
LSU senior guards Khayla Pointer and Jailin Cherry led the Tigers in scoring with 22 and 17 points, respectfully. Pointer was the leading three-point scorer for the Tigers as she sank four 3-pointers. Graduate-transfer forward Autumn Newby was also excellent today, notching an impressive 16 rebounds and a double-double in her first appearance at LSU.
Eleven of the 12 players that saw the court for LSU scored and five players finished with double-digits. Although LSU controlled the entire game, the Tigers shot on 37.5-percent in the first half. Shooting 28-56 in the second half, LSU finished with 44.8-percent from the field. The Tigers played big on the glass with 68 rebounds, including 38 offensive. The Tigers had 35 second-chance points and limited Langston to no second-chance points.
LSU went up 20-5 in the first quarter and was led by freshman center Hannah Gusters and Pointer. Gusters, who was named to the Lisa Leslie Award Watchlist on Friday, had seven of LSU’s points in the opening quarter as well as three rebounds.
After jumping out to a 15-point lead to end the first quarter, the Tigers kept it rolling. LSU finished the half on a 13-1 run with a 43-16 lead. Pointer led LSU in the half with 10 points on 5-of-10 shooting. With the clock running down in the second quarter and Langston inbounding the ball, senior guard Ryan Payne forced a turnover and got the ball to Pointer who nailed a three-pointer from the left corner at the buzzer.
LSU ramped up the intensity in the third quarter and broke the game wide open. Playing a full-court man press, the Tigers got 12 steals and 14 boards on the offensive glass. LSU was relentless. Pointer was responsible for five of the steals and both Aifuwa and Newby grabbed four offensive rebounds.
Everybody got in the mix in the fourth quarter as LSU’s momentum rolled. Freshman guard Timia Ware had 15 points in the final quarter with three assists and three rebounds, while senior forward Awa Trasi contributed 10 fourth quarter points of her own.
(LSU Athletics Press Release)