LSU held on to Stanford’s 15 turnovers tightly.
But in a game where LSU was outperformed in just about every statistical figure, along with an overtime period to add to regulation, those 15 turnovers may have been the swing factor to give LSU a 94-88 win.
“I thought that we guarded them better just with the smaller lineup,” Mulkey said.
LSU only turned the ball over four times, and scored 14 points off of Stanford’s 15 turnovers. Without those 14 points, the result of the game looks completely different.
Stanford came into Thursday’s matchup leading the country in 3-point percentage, boasting a 43.8% 3-point success rate on 22 3-point attempts per game.
As Stanford shot 30% from three Thursday night, LSU had to tap into that aspect of its offense in order to keep up.
Mikaylah Williams led the way in LSU’s perimeter attack, shooting 5-for-9 from the arc, 12-for-18 from the field, and finished with 32 points. Williams hit a crucial jump shot to send the game to overtime, tying the game at 80.
“With the guards that we have and the team that we have, it can be anybody’s night,” Williams said. “It just happened to be mine.”
Flau’jae Johnson also shot 3-for-8 from three and finished with 2 points and six assists. She shot 8-for-20 from the field. Kailyn Gilbert added 25 points, shooting 9-for-12 from the field.
But along with Stanford’s perimeter attack, the Cardinal played well down low and outrebounded LSU 42-37. In fact, it took almost the entire first half for Aneesah Morrow to score her first points of the game. Morrow finished with eight points and 16 rebounds.
“Whether it’s Morrow or Flau’jae [Johnson] or Mikaylah Williams…we really just try to take away teams’ strengths,” Stanford head coach Kate Paye said. “Morrow is a fantastic player on the block, she demands a double [team].”
Nunu Agara was Stanford’s answer when it came to controlling the paint early. She finished with a double-double in 29 points and 13 rebounds and shot 12-for-16 from the field.
“We have very unselfish players on our team,” Paye said. “We move the ball really well. They don’t care who the leading scorer is.”
Of Stanford’s 42 rebounds, 34 were defensive rebounds and the team allowed just 22 points in the paint. LSU often didn’t have a chance to create momentum on offense, so it placed that much more emphasis on the Tigers’ defense.
The Tigers held their own defending the perimeter. After Stanford shot 71.4% from three in the first quarter, it only shot 17% the rest of the game.
Brooke Demetre finished with 19 points to complement Agara, and Elena Bosgana finished with 16 points. Jzaniya Harriel added 15 points.
So despite the win, what does this mean for LSU? Its frontcourt strength is of concern as conference play gets closer. With Morrow having 16 of LSU’s 37 rebounds, but also four fouls, who did LSU have to look to in a time of need?
Well, Sa’Myah Smith was held scoreless in just 15 minutes of playing time, and Jersey Wolfenbarger was held scoreless in four minutes of time on the floor. Aalyah Del Rosario did not appear in the game.
LSU has arguably the most depth it had in Mulkey’s time in Baton Rouge. While that depth was much needed, especially with the roles needed to be filled in the backcourt, the frontcourt remains thin.
In the effort to contain Stanford’s shooting success from the perimeter, it was encouraging that the smaller lineup and the guard depth Mulkey implemented allowed her team to force 15 turnovers and stayed in the game because of it.
“Never did I think I had to go small as much as I did,” Mulkey said. “But you make decisions in the heat of the game. Sometimes they’re the right decisions, sometimes they’re not. Tonight happened to be the right decision.”
But it will take much more than executing off of turnovers to win a toss-up game in SEC play.
The Tigers look to keep their momentum and also fix their mistakes on Sunday, as they travel to Mikaylah Williams’ hometown in Bossier City to take on Grambling.
That game will tip-off at 2 p.m. from Brookshire Grocery Arena in Bossier City.
