Eight new Lady Tigers got their first taste of playing on the home hardwood Wednesday during the season-opening exhibition game at the PMAC.Visible jitters plagued No. 24 LSU during the first half, but the Lady Tigers built on a four-point halftime lead to roll to a 68-50 win against Loyola.”The LSU Lady Tigers have got a long way to go,” coach Van Chancellor said before even taking his seat for the postgame press conference.LSU committed 17 turnovers and struggled to find a rhythm early on, shooting 40 percent from the field in the first half. The Lady Tigers then embarked on a 20-3 second half run to put the game out of reach.”I don’t care how young we are,” Chancellor said. “We ought to be able to play smart basketball. We learned a lot of things.”Junior guard Allison Hightower, the most experienced returning player, didn’t score until the 6:40 mark in the first half. She sank 7-of-14 shots to end the game with a team-high 15 points.”Hightower couldn’t throw one in the Atlantic Ocean,” Chancellor said of her first-half performance. “But she settled down.”Chancellor said Hightower must learn to boost her confidence and make plays, whether it is a hook shot or crucial assist. He said the preseason second team All-Southeastern Conference player must possess a certain swagger.”Most players like that, it’s hard to fit their egos through the door,” he said. “But it’s a struggle to keep her confidence up.”Freshman forward LaSondra Barrett turned in the most impressive performance of the new Lady Tigers, according to a postgame assessment from Chancellor.”She’s pretty darn special,” Chancellor said.Barrett scored 11 points and had four assists in 16 minutes.”I had a mindset going into the game that I was going to come in and pick up the slack when my teammates were struggling,” she said.Chancellor said nerves got the best of junior college transfer guard Andrea Kelly, who shot 1-of-7 and committed three turnovers.”I have great expectations for this group,” he said.Twin guards Trenese and Trenell Smith scored 31 of Loyola’s 50 total points.First-year Loyola coach Kellie Kennedy said she thought her team held strong for three-fourths of the game.”LSU hit some shots and got some easy buckets inside,” she said. “They’re so athletic.”The paid crowd of 3,058 observed a game finish that perhaps belonged on a soccer or football field rather than the court.Loyola senior guard Christine Mainguy was called for a foul with 21 seconds remaining and subsequently kicked the ball out of frustration many rows deep into the PMAC crowd.—-Contact Amy Brittain at [email protected]