In March, the common mentality within teams in the NCAA Tournament is “survive and advance.”
LSU survived and advanced with a 73-50 win on Friday against Hawaii in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Tigers will play Michigan, who played before LSU in Baton Rouge, and beat UNLV 71-59 in their first-round matchup. The sixth-seeded Wolverines will face off with LSU on Sunday at the PMAC at a time to be determined.
The game wasn’t perfect for LSU, but it was enough to secure the win, which is all that matters to the Tigers at the moment.
Angel Reese led the team in scoring with 34 points and 15 rebounds, a performance that gave her her 28th double-double performance of the season. She also recorded three blocks.
LaDazhia Williams, as she has several times before, was her partner in crime in the paint. She finished with nine points, two rebounds and three blocks. In a game where the Tigers shot 1-for-14 from behind the three-point line, Reese and Williams carried the majority of the offensive workload.
In her first March Madness, freshman guard, Flau’jae Johnson, also showed out. She filled up the stat sheet with 10 points, six rebounds, five assists, a steal and a block.
“I challenged her,” Kim Mulkey said. “She performed tonight…there was a lot of teaching going on in two weeks, with a couple of days off, but I challenged her. I think she responded beautifully today.”
An unfamiliar sight on Friday was the disconnection of Alexis Morris. She recorded four steals and a block on the game but did not get her first points until nine minutes left in the game. She finished the game with six points, two rebounds and two assists.
“I think it was just Alexis missing some shots early,” Mulkey said. “She just needed to stay cool, and she did. She didn’t get too down, didn’t get too high, she’s a senior that understands that happens in the game.”
For Hawaii, Kallin Spiller led the team with 13 points, five rebounds and two steals. Lily Wahinekapu added 11 points, six rebounds and three assists off the bench for the Rainbow Wahine.
“I thought we did a pretty good job on the boards, turnovers got us,” Hawaii head coach, Laura Beeman, said. “I think what it came down to was when big shots had to be made, they made shots and we missed shots when we had wide-open looks. To beat a team the quality of LSU, you have to hit wide-open shots. We just didn’t do that.”
While LSU’s offense had its ups and downs, the defense was consistent throughout the game. The Tigers forced 21 turnovers from Hawaii as opposed to LSU’s 10 turnovers in the game.
“We worked on that all week,” Johnson said. “I feel like what we do in our defense, LSU defense, really works for us. We worked a lot on transition defense, they shoot a lot of threes, fanning out, or getting downhill, that’s what we’ve been working on all week. So just getting back to our style of defense.”
The defense will have to show up for the Tigers on Sunday against Michigan. Against UNLV, the Wolverines made six three-pointers out of an attempted 15.
“They’re just solid,” Mulkey said. “They’re big at all positions…they played all year in what a lot of people consider the best league in women’s basketball.”
Along with having to contain their opponent from making three-pointers, the Tigers have to be able to make them. Michigan allowed UNLV to make seven three-pointers in their first-round matchup, so the Tigers could potentially have opportunities to heat up from the perimeter.
There were things the Tigers did well against Hawaii, and there were things they struggled with. This time of year, teams have to rely on what they’re good at and hope to find it in them to pull off successful tries at what they’re not as good at.
With LSU knows what type of team they are, and what they’re good at. But regardless, the end goal is simple: survive and advance.
“Survive and advance, right,” Mulkey said. “We’ve been here at this level. We want to win one more.”
