The No. 13 seed LSU women’s basketball team upset No. 12 seed Alabama, 58-49, on Wednesday morning in the first round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, at the Veterans Memorial Arena.
The Lady Tigers (3-13, 10-20 SEC) previously lost their first matchup against Alabama (4-12, 15-15 SEC) on Jan. 3 with a final score of 62-45.
“Obviously this was a great win for our program,” said coach Nikki Fargas. “I thought our team really stuck to the game plan, especially on the defensive end … We were able to score the basketball inside with the help of [junior forward] Alexis Hyder. The guard play of [freshman guard] Shanice Norton and [junior guard] Rina Hill was tremendous. [Senior guard] Anne Pedersen, seeing her knock down shots, it was a great team win.”
Going into the tournament, sophomore guard Hannah Cook led Alabama in points per game with 12, but the Lady Tigers’ defense limited her to eight points and nine rebounds.
Hyder entered the tournament as the Lady Tigers’ leading scorer and continued to spark LSU’s offense with 20 points shooting 9-of-12 from the field and a 2-of-3 effort from the free throw line. She scored 14 of those points in the second half. Hyder also had nine rebounds and five assists in Wednesday’s game.
Hyder has scored double figures for the last seven games, notching her 20th game this season with more than 10 points.
The Lady Tigers shot 50 percent from the floor while the Crimson Tide managed to sink only 30 percent of its shots.
“Everybody kind of got on me about passing up shots,” Hyder said. “I figured, if I have two, somebody has to be open, if I’m doubled. That’s what it was. I’m kind of glad my team was knocking down shots. It opened up the floor for me.”
Only six of eight available scholarship players played in the first half for the Lady Tigers with senior forward Akilah Bethel and junior guard Jasmine Rhodes sitting out the first half of the game because of a violation of team rules. The Lady Tigers also played without sophomore guard Jenna Deemer, who sat out because of the same illness that kept her from playing for most of the season.
The Lady Tigers went into the half trailing Alabama, 22-24, shooting 10-of-23 from the field and a perfect 2-for-2 clip at the charity line. Alabama was 9-of-31 from the field with two three-pointers in the first half. They made all four of their free throw attempts and outrebounded LSU, 17-15.
Alabama took the tip and first bucket in the beginning of the first quarter. Hill had the first bucket for the Lady Tigers. LSU 6-0 run outscoring Alabama, 14-8, and entered the fourth quarter went an advantage. LSU’s largest lead over the Crimson Tide in the fourth, 58-48, was when Hyder made a three-pointer, followed by two free throws from Rhodes with 1:11 left in the quarter.
Hyder and Hill contributed 30 points together with Hill contributing 10 points. Hill, Hyder and Norton had five assists each. Norton and Hyder headed the Lady Tigers on the boards with nine rebounds each. Norton also scored eight points, senior forward Ann Jones and Rhodes had six points while Pedersen and Bethel each contributed four.
The Lady Tigers had 21 assists to Alabama’s seven.
“I think when we went to switch to man, we stayed alert and kept communicating with each other so we were all on the same page,” Norton said. “We just worked as a unit. We recognized their weaknesses and played against them to our advantage.”
LSU advances to the SEC second round to compete against No. 5 Kentucky (10-6, 21-6 SEC) at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday.
Kentucky takes second in the SEC with 73.9 points per game and fourth making 70.4 percent of free throws. Kentucky forward Evelyn Akhator is the team’s lead rebounder with 9.4 rebounds per game and guard Makayla Epps spearheads points per game with 16.3 points.