Learning to balance offensive firepower and defensive toughness is a key lesson for every basketball team to learn.
For the LSU women’s basketball team that gained offensive explosiveness with the return of junior guard Danielle Ballard, the emphasis on its trademark defensive effort slipped as the Lady Tigers relied on Ballard’s ability to change the game with her offensive production.
But all that changed against Ole Miss on Thursday when Ballard sparked the Lady Tigers’ 70-41 victory, not with a 20-plus point scoring performance, but with seven steals.
“We’ve come to realize how important our defense is,” Ballard said following the win against Ole Miss. “We’re being more aggressive, and we’re talking on defense and communicating with each other. One of the key things is communication with each other, and the girls know that defense is very important being in the [Southeastern Conference] with the great teams out there. You just want to go out there and lock the other team down.”
Against then-No. 15 Mississippi State on Jan. 15, then-No. 10 Kentucky on Jan. 18 and then-No.5 Tennessee on Jan. 22, LSU surrendered an average of 74.3 points per game, despite allowing an average of 59.4 points per game this season.
The Lady Tigers allowed individual players to exploit their defense with five different players scoring at least 15 points through the stretch. Against Mississippi State and Kentucky, LSU allowed two scorers each to reach the 15-point mark.
Tennessee senior center Isabelle Harrison, who posted three double-doubles against LSU last season, continued her trend by dominating LSU with 25 points and eight rebounds.
With LSU’s opponents scoring in droves, Ballard faced pressure to score in order to keep the Lady Tigers in games during the run.
In the Lady Tigers’ victories against Mississippi State and Kentucky, Ballard averaged 24.5 points and seven rebounds per game. But in LSU’s loss against Tennessee, Ballard produced only 15 points and five boards with 11 points coming in the second half after the Lady Vols had already secured the lead.
Against Ole Miss, the Lady Tigers held the SEC’s third-leading scorer and leading rebounder, senior forward Tia Faleru, to five points and seven rebounds, which released pressure on Ballard.
“We did not want to make the same mistake, if you will, that we made with Isabelle Harrison from Tennessee,” said LSU coach Nikki Caldwell after beating Ole Miss. “We wanted to really put a lot of emphasis on our guard play and disrupting the view of the basketball to [Faleru] in the post. When she would step short corner or step out, we were in denial.”
Besides shutting down Faleru, the Lady Tigers returned to their defensive roots by creating turnovers.
LSU created an average of 25 turnovers per game, including 11 steals against Mississippi State and Kentucky. But against Tennessee, the Lady Tigers managed to force only 15 turnovers and six steals.
Against Ole Miss, LSU’s hustle to the ball returned, and the Lady Tigers forced 30 turnovers against the Rebels, including a season-high 22 steals. Ballard led LSU with seven steals, and seven other Lady Tigers recorded at least one steal.
Although LSU scored only 12 points off turnovers against Tennessee, the Lady Tigers posted 34 points off turnovers against Ole Miss, which took pressure off Ballard. LSU’s win against Ole Miss was the Lady Tigers’ second of the season in which Ballard scored less than 20 points.
“Defense is very important,” Ballard said. “[Caldwell] always says that defense wins games, and that’s one thing that I am good at which is stealing balls. It happens with all the deflections and going and getting that ball – that is something I’m really good at.”
You can reach Morgan Prewitt on Twitter @kmprewitt_TDR.