NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Florida Atlantic forward Demina Anderson said she knew that not many people were optimistic about FAU’s chances Saturday against No. 1-seed LSU.
“Pretty much all of my friends told me we were going to lose by 40 points,” Anderson said. “Everyone expected us not to win and not to be in the game.”
But for the first 10 minutes of the game, the Lady Owls proved their friends and the experts wrong Saturday in the first round of the women’s NCAA Tournament.
FAU led 14-13 with 10:24 left to play in the first half before the Lady Tigers answered with a 20-0 scoring run and cruised to a 72-48 victory to advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
“If we could have stopped the game there at the 10-minute mark, it would have been good,” FAU coach Chancellor Dugan said.
The Lady Owls were not timid in admitting their wide-eyed approach to the game and their play showed it.
FAU shot just 28.3 percent from the field and turned the ball over 25 times.
“What surprised me was that we were in the game with them for the first 10 minutes,” Anderson said. “I mean, this is LSU.”
During LSU’s scoring run, FAU turned the ball over six times and went 0-for-12 from the floor.
LSU coach Pokey Chatman said her team’s 20-0 run “sounds good” but she was disappointed in her team’s execution early on.
“We wasted about seven-and-a-half or eight minutes before we got into the scouting report offense,” Chatman said. “Every time you talk about a scouting report, you talk about defense, but there are certain things you want to do offensively.”
LSU senior forward Seimone Augustus, who led all scorers with 22 points, and sophomore center Sylvia Fowles, who scored 15 points, said they agreed with Chatman’s assessment of the team’s play to begin the game.
“We were stagnant, standing around on defense and did not get after it like we wanted to,” Augustus said.
The Lady Tigers continued their surge in the second half and opened the frame with a 23-4 run over the first seven minutes of the half.
With 11 minutes left in the game, LSU led 62-26 and owned a 36-point lead, its largest of the game.
Despite the team’s dominance, Chatman said she chastised her team for not playing a complete game.
“I just kind of appealed to their competitive nature and challenged them in terms of where they want to go and how they want their season to play out.”
 
AUGUSTUS BREAKS ANOTHER RECORD
Seimone Augustus did not waste any playing time before making another mark in women’s college basketball history.
Augustus scored at least 10 points for the 128th consecutive game to break the record held by Baylor’s Sophia Young and former greats Alana Beard and Jackie Stiles.
Young tied Augustus’ record later in the day by scoring 16 points in Baylor’s opening round win against Northern Arizona.
 
 
Contact Kyle Whitfield at [email protected]