Forward Seimone Augustus went down on the Mississippi State floor on Sunday and did not immediately jump up.
A potential Freshman of the Year candidate, and LSU’s leading scorer with 15.2 points per game, Augustus was lying on the hardwood in pain in the final minutes of the game, the injury unclear.
But after nearly a minute had elapsed, Augustus limped off the court with just a turned right ankle. Forward Aiysha Smith also was limping with a left ankle injury but remained in the game.
Both are expected to play on Thursday against Alabama and will practice on Wednesday.
“It’s better,” Augustus said. “It felt bad, but I knew it wasn’t [real bad] because I twist my ankles all the time because I have a very weak ankle.”
Head coach Sue Gunter said while everybody else was worried about Augustus, she was not as concerned. Augustus turned the same ankle against Penn State when she stepped on a cheerleader out of bounds.
      “I don’t think I panicked as much as everybody else did,” Gunter said. “I knew she has a bad ankle. You catch your breath when every player goes down. The first thing you think is ‘God, I hope it’s not her knee.’ You have your season flash before your eyes.”
Augustus said she could have gone back in to finish the game if LSU needed her, but the Tigers sealed the game with her on the bench.
“It was just a lot more painful because I came down hard,” Augustus said. “If [the team] needed [me to go back in], yeah. I started to warmup at the end. The team had already taken control of the situation.”
Meanwhile, Smith stayed in the game and continued to play at a high level.
“You can’t say enough about Aiysha; she just stuck through it,” Augustus said. “Temeka [Johnson] stepped it up really big. There were a lot of times Mississippi State could have gotten closer to cutting our lead, but they didn’t let it get to that. They just kept fighting.”
Gunter said Smith has a way of convincing the opponent she may not be physically able to do anything and then taking it to them.
“Aiysha is going to do what she’s going to do,” Gunter said. “You look at Aiysha sometimes in practice, and you think she can’t take another step. There’s just sometimes she’s one of those kids I just look up at her and she’s grimacing or she’s holding her shoulder or holding her head. But you better watch her while she’s doing it, because she’s still pretty good.”