The LSU women’s basketball team defeated Auburn, 60-49, Thursday night on the road in Auburn, Alabama, for its seventh Southeastern Conference win.
LSU (13-9, 7-3 SEC) stayed alive against struggling Auburn (9-14, 0-10 SEC), which has now lost 11 straight games. Auburn went into the game as the lowest team in the SEC standings.
The Lady Tigers struggled from the floor, shooting only 38 percent for the game. However, LSU played efficiently in terms of handling the ball, committing a mere 14 turnovers.
LSU coach Nikki Caldwell said Auburn is a tough defensive team that has been rattling teams all season.
“We knew that Auburn defensively has really done a nice job of disrupting the SEC,” Caldwell said in a post-game radio interview. “They’ve held four or five teams below sixty points so we knew that it was gonna be a battle.”
LSU was led by junior guard Danielle Ballard, who had 14 points on 4-of-15 shooting. She made up for her poor-shooting night by knocking down all six of her free throws while grabbing seven rebounds and six assists.
LSU had a 15-point lead early in the second half, a gap that Auburn closed with a 9-0 run with about eight minutes left in the game. Sophomore guard Brandy Montgomery drained 3-point shots to pull Auburn within six points with seven minutes left in the game. Montgomery led all scorers with a game-high 23 points.
Caldwell said Auburn was able to find Montgomery, regardless of LSU’s pre-game preparations.
“In the 3’s that they got, Montgomery was left wide open,” Caldwell said. “We talked about and watched extra film on her ability to knock down shots. She did just that for them.”
LSU closed the game on 10-3 run and played strong defense down the stretch. The Lady Tigers’ transition offense was responsible for nearly half of the team’s point total, as it scored 28 points off 24 Auburn turnovers. LSU also held Auburn to less than 50 points, which was the fourth game in a row for the offensively challenged team.
Caldwell said she was proud of the way her team buckled down and finished with a big run at the right time.
“We were able to turn them over and get some transition baskets going, and we were able to execute off those turnovers, and I feel like that was the difference in the game,” Caldwell said. “I have to commend our group because we made a run, then they made a run. It was a game of both teams fighting. You have to execute your game plan, and you have to be in stride with what you want to do late-game.”
LSU’s next matchup is against Alabama on Sunday at 4 p.m. in the PMAC on the SEC Network. The Lady Tigers will look to win their fifth home game in a row while Alabama (12-12, 1-8 SEC) will try to end a three-game losing streak.
Alabama is led by sophomore forward Ashley Williams, who leads the team with 13.1 points per game and 6.3 rebounds per game. The Crimson Tide is ranked second-to-last in the SEC, ahead of only Auburn, and are 1-4 on the road this season.
The last time LSU faced Alabama, the Lady Tigers prevailed with a 78-65 victory, during which Ballard pulled in a team-high 18 points while grabbing seven rebounds in the process.