EUGENE, Ore. — Despite losing Temeka Johnson to injury early in the second half and Doneeka Hodges leaving for a small amount of time with an injured right shoulder, the Lady Tigers pulled out a win against the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, 80-69, Monday night in front of 2,250 fans in McArthur Court.
After this second-round win in the NCAA Women’s Tournament, LSU (29-3) now heads to its seventh Sweet 16, its first since 2000. The Lady Tigers face the winner of the Louisiana Tech-Ohio State game on Sunday. Tech and Ohio St. play their second-round matchup tonight.
“I’m just glad we’ve handled our business,” said LSU coach Sue Gunter. “Yes, it’s nice to be in the Sweet 16 again.”
LSU shot a NCAA Tournament school record 63.3 percent from the floor compared to 43.1 for UW-GB (28-4) Monday night. Their previous record was 58.8 percent, set against Southwest Texas last Saturday.
LSU outrebounded the Phoenix 32-28. The Lady Tigers are 22-0 when outrebouding an opponent.
“Defensively, it’s difficult to matchup with them athletically, but offensively, we seem to do pretty well,” said UW-GB head coach Kevin Borseth.
LSU held UW-GB to only six 3-pointers, with forward Kristy Loiselle shooting 3-for-3 behind the arc. The Phoenix shoot 8.2 3-pointers on average per game.
LSU led by as many as 15 with 21 seconds left in the first half and by as little as two in the beginning of the game. Though the game was close at times, LSU never relinquished the lead to the Phoenix.
“We were very close to shocking the NCAA world, very close,” Borseth said.
Gunter said the Phoenix convinced her they deserved better than their No. 8 seed.
“They were impressive,” Gunter said. “They made a believer out of me.”
Gunter added: “They seemed to have an answer for everything. I think we made big plays when we needed to.”
Senior guard Kisha James took over on the floor for the injured Johnson, adding five points and four assists in 15 minutes.
“Temeka went down with an injury, and that’s my job to play backup point guard and step up big,” James said. “We did what we had to do to win the game.”
Johnson went down with 12:38 left in the second half and suffered a slight concussion. Johnson re-entered the game briefly but left again because of blurred vision. Before leaving, she scored eight points and added seven assists in 25 minutes of play.
Minutes later Hodges went down with a right shoulder injury but returned quickly.
Hodges came up with big plays for the Lady Tigers, leading LSU with 20 points, 12 of those points on 3-pointers.
“When she got the stroke going, we let her go,” Gunter said of Hodges’ 3-point shooting.
She was one of four Lady Tigers in double digits. Center Aiysha Smith, forward Seimone Augustus and forward Ke-Ke Tardy all chipped in with 12 points each.
Augustus scored double digits for her eighth-straight game, and Smith for her sixth straight.