Nothing came easy Thursday night for the Lady Tigers against Kentucky. A missed dunk by Sylvia Fowles, 50 percent free-throw shooting and a basketball stuck in the corner of the rim were a few offensive woes that plagued No. 6 LSU (23-3, 12-0) in its gritty 52-48 win against the Wildcats. Kentucky (13-13, 7-5) tied the game at 48 with less than two minutes to play – threatening to blemish LSU’s perfect Southeastern Conference record. Senior guard Erica White recovered a tipped ball and scored on a layup to give LSU a two-point lead at the 1:30 mark. It was a lead LSU never relinquished as senior center Sylvia Fowles sealed the win by sinking two free throws with 6.0 seconds remaining. The free throws were anything but a certainty. Fowles was 6-of-12 from the line, and the team shot a dismal 12-of-24. Flu-stricken LSU coach Van Chancellor said he expected a close game but did not expect his team to “miss every free throw in the world.” In the most recent matchup between the two teams, LSU beat Kentucky 72-46 on Jan. 27 in Lexington. “The best thing about tonight’s game … we won,” Chancellor said. “Thank God we found a way to win. I don’t know how, but we did.” Fowles led LSU with 14 points, although she scored just two points in the first 17 minutes of play. Fowles attempted a dunk – which would have been the second completed dunk in her career – but said a faulty grip on the ball caused her miss. “It was very physical tonight, but it’s not like we’ve never seen that before,” Fowles said. “We just didn’t respond well.” Kentucky first-year coach Matthew Mitchell said his game plan was to take Fowles out of the paint with aggressive double-teaming. “During the last game we were double-teaming her too softly,” he said. Kentucky senior center Sarah Elliott had the 6-foot-6-inch height to match Fowles. “It was a battle at the post,” Elliott said. “We contained her a lot and boxed her out. But she is an All-American.” White said LSU’s near loss helped her teammates learn a valuable lesson about conference opponents. “We needed this game tonight,” she said. “Coach has been saying it all year … that we’re going to be in a dogfight in the SEC.” White said her team might have felt overconfident after dominating some SEC opponents, such as a 16-point win against then-No. 1 Tennessee on Feb. 14. “I think my teammates and I may have thought, ‘Hey … we’re LSU. We can play how we want for 40 minutes and come away with a win,'” she said. “We got about two minutes away from realizing that’s not true. We need to come out and play smart 40 minutes every night.” LSU faces No. 1 Connecticut on Monday in the PMAC at 6 p.m. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN2.
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