After struggling in the beginning of the season with her shot, it seems junior guard Doneeka Hodges has found her touch from the outside.
The 5-foot-11 New Orleans native scored 24 points against Kentucky and 26 on the road Sunday against No. 9 Arkansas. Her consistent performance throughout the week earned Hodges player of the week honors from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.
Included in her performance against Kentucky was a career-high six three-pointers.
Hodges will try to continue her tear as the No. 6 Lady Tigers (15-1, 3-1) venture to the Sunshine State for a Southeastern Conference confrontation with the Florida Lady Gators (8-8, 0-4) at 6 p.m. local time. LSU will hope to rebound from its first loss of the season, an 82-72 defeat at Arkansas.
“For the first quarter of the season, I struggled with my offense,” Hodges said. “But I didn’t let that affect the rest of my play. I thought if I kept working on it and kept my confidence, the shots would fall.”
Head coach Sue Gunter said Hodges is shooting well.
“She’s been playing well the last two games,” Gunter said. “We’ve been waiting for her game to come around, and thankfully and finally, it has. She showed a lot of heart and determination in the Arkansas game. I thought she was a real spark plug.”
Hodges discounts Florida’s record in conference play, despite the lopsided losses the Lady Gators suffered in the past two weeks. In Florida’s last three games, it has lost by 43, 39 and 41 points.
However, those losses came at the hands of No. 24 Georgia, No. 8 Arkansas, and No. 4 Tennessee.
“I think any SEC game is tough; it’s especially tough when we’re on the road and playing a good team,” Hodges said. “Their record doesn’t mean much. They’re still a good team.”
Point guard Temeka Johnson said Florida could cause the Tigers some problems.
“There’s nobody in this conference that we can go to sleep on,” Johnson said. “Florida’s a very good team. They have a lot of quick players and a good transition offense.”
Gunter also is concerned about going on the road and playing a team with nothing to lose.
“That’s scary because anytime you go on [the road] against an 0-4 team and you relax a little bit in this conference, that’s the kiss of death,” Gunter said. Johnson said the team learned it has a lot to work on as a result of the 10-point loss at Arkansas.
“Arkansas pretty much exposed all of our weaknesses,” Johnson said. “We can fault ourselves, but you can give credit to Arkansas. They exposed our weaknesses on a nationally-televised game, and we don’t want that to ever happen again.”
Since starting forward DeTrina White might be out for the rest of the season, Gunter probably will turn to senior Ke-Ke Tardy to fill the starting position. Gunter said others, including 6-foot-5 junior transfer center Crystal White and 6-foot-1 freshman forward Wendlyn Jones, will have to step up to fill the void.
“Ke-Ke’s probably the most experienced player we’ve got [to fill the position],” Gunter said. “She was a starter last year, and that’s probably how we’ll start [against Florida]. Crystal White will get more minutes and Wendlyn will also. At least we have the depth to counter.”