The LSU women’s basketball team’s blowout loss to No. 1 South Carolina last Thursday in Columbia marked the Lady Tigers’ eighth consecutive loss when trailing at halftime.
LSU (14-10, 8-4 Southeastern Conference) is 0-8 this season when trailing after the first 20 minutes of the game, with three of those losses against SEC competition.
The Lady Tigers have been front running through the majority of their wins, going 14-2 when winning or tied halfway through their matchups. They’ve won six straight when going into the locker room ahead, their last loss against then-No. 9 Texas A&M on Jan. 11.
LSU coach Nikki Caldwell said her group needs to figure out how to play a more complete game, and bench players must step up when necessary.
“I think for this group we’ve got to better [in the 10 segments of the game],” Caldwell said. “We’ve done a nice job in the first 10 minutes of basketball games. Even against South Carolina, the score was 10-13 through 10 minutes. And I’ve got to get more productivity out of my bench. We’ve got to be able to go to the bench and maintain where we’re at or give ourselves a spark. I need more of that.”
LSU’s bench has averaged 16 points per game in the eight losses LSU has suffered after trailing at the halfway mark. Caldwell said plenty of the bench is to blame but added senior guard DaShawn Harden needs to take more responsibility as the sixth man.
“I can rip through my entire bench, but I’m going to start with Harden,” Caldwell said. “I think she can give us a spark in a big way on both sides of the basketball. Not too many players can do that. She’s a player that, to me, is one of our more skilled guards. She’s able to shoot the three, come off of ball screens and put a pull-up jumper in and get to the basket.”
Through the first 15 games, Harden averaged 12 points per game and led the team in that category. In her last eight appearances, Harden’s average dropped to 5.8 points per game while averaging 21 minutes.
The distance LSU trails at the half in these games is not remarkable. Besides two blowout losses to then-No. 1 South Carolina, the Lady Tigers trailed by an average of nine points at halftime in the games it lost.
Freshman guard Jenna Deemer said a lack of passion is an issue when they come out trailing at halftime.
“When we’re down, it doesn’t fire us up to come back. But it needs to in a way,” Deemer said. “When we come back out, go hard just like if we were warming up for the game. I think we need to get sweating and get moving.
With LSU’s offense heavily reliant on transition, its defense has been significant for the team’s offensive productivity, losing only three games when opponents score fewer than 60 points against them.
In the games LSU lost when trailing in the first half, the Lady Tiger defense struggled to force turnovers. The defense allowed teams to shoot 47 percent from the field in the second half and allowed an average of 34 points during that period.
Junior forward Anne Pedersen said she believes her team is losing focus in the second half, and it is not the result of physical fatigue.
“I think it’s mental. Obviously, we’re capable of doing big things when we’re in tune,” Pedersen said. “So it’s all mental. Sometimes trailing is good because you get this extra spark, but for us, it’s been not so good. So it’s very important for us to come out in the first half and really create that lead because we know that we sometimes struggle when we come out in the second half.”
You can reach Stanton Vignes on Twitter @stanvignes_TDR.