LSU women’s basketball was certainly tested Thursday night at the PMAC. The Tigers escaped with a 79-76 win against Arkansas, giving them their 19th straight win and keeping their undefeated season alive.
“Sometimes you just leave and go, ‘that was a good game,’” Mulkey said. “Good game for women’s basketball, good game for the SEC.”
Angel Reese continued her consecutive double-double streak to 19 games, tying the school record set by Sylvia Fowles. Reese finished the game with 30 points and 19 rebounds. She also shot 10-17 from the free throw line.
“My first time meeting her [Fowles] was Sunday,” Reese said. “I gave her a hug, her hugs are amazing, so I love that. She’s really proud of me.”
But Reese had help, of course. LaDazhia Williams backed her up in the paint, with a double-double of her own with 11 points and 12 rebounds.
“It was a good game, we dominated the boards,” Mulkey said. “It was a good game for women’s basketball, it was a good game for the SEC, the student section was great.”
Flau’jae Johnson and Jasmine Carson led the way for the Tiger guards. Johnson finished with 19 points and six rebounds. She also shot a perfect four out of four from the foul line, all of which came in the crucial last seconds of the game.
Carson scored 10 points, including two three-pointers.
Arkansas came into the matchup as a team that liked to shoot three-pointers, and it came in confident after losing to LSU at home by 24 in their previous matchup.
“Kudos to Arkansas, they got better,” Reese said. “They’re going to be a good team, they’re a good team right now, they scouted us well. We made a couple of mistakes tonight, but Arkansas did get better.”
They attempted 29 three-pointers in the game and made 10. In fact, in the first quarter alone, the Razorbacks attempted 12 three-pointers. To put this in perspective, LSU attempted 10 three-pointers in the entire game.
But in order to stay in the game, the Razorbacks started to work down low more in the second half. The Tigers held the lead the whole game until Arkansas slowly fought their way back. Come midway through the fourth quarter, Makayla Daniels gave the Razorbacks their first lead with a three of her own.
Erynn Bynum led Arkansas with 20 points and seven rebounds. Chrissy Carr and Samara Spencer each made an impact; Carr finished the night with 12 points, making three three-pointers, and Spencer finished with 13 points and six assists. Makayla Daniels and Maryam Dauda each added 11 points.
Arkansas fed off of LSU’s moments of adversity, whether it was within themselves or with the officiating, which several times Coach Mulkey was livid towards.
While the atmosphere at the PMAC was electric, and the team is happy to come away with the win, Mulkey and her team will be the first to say Wednesday night served as a wake-up call. While Arkansas is one of the better teams in the conference, it showed that the Tigers aren’t perfect and still not where they want to be once the most important weeks of the season come.
But Mulkey knows how to get a team in that type of shape for when that time does come. The question is: what will the rest of the season look like to get there?
“Prepare for the next game,” Mulkey said. “This was a great game tonight. We made a few more plays than they did to win it, and we will flush it after tonight.”
Regardless, Mulkey and her team will enjoy the hard-fought win over Arkansas and get prepared for their next game against Alabama. They travel to Alabama for a match-up with the Crimson Tide at 6 p.m. at the Coleman Coliseum on the campus of the University of Alabama.
