Traveling to face Nicholls State, LSU women’s basketball coach Van Chancellor was concerned about his team’s ability to focus on the task at hand.
The Lady Tigers (5-4) were coming off their worst loss in seven years — a 30-point drubbing at the hands of No. 1 Connecticut — and playing their fourth game in five days.
His fears appeared justified Tuesday in the opening minutes with the game tied 10-10 after a sluggish start from the Lady Tigers.
What followed, however, was a 42-8 run that sparked an 88-35 win and left Chancellor gushing with hyperbole in his postgame radio show.
“This win tonight reminded me a lot of the old-fashioned Lady Tiger way,” Chancellor said. “We played with great enthusiasm. We played hard. We played together. It’s just a total, total team victory.”
Leading the way was unheralded freshman forward Shanece McKinney, who scored a team-high 15 points in only 10 minutes, and junior forward LaSondra Barrett, who added 13 points and four rebounds.
However, the story of the night was freshman forward Theresa Plaisance, playing for the first time against her mother, Nicholls State coach DoBee Plaisance.
Plaisance, a McDonald’s All-American in high school, came into Tuesday’s contest averaging just 1.1 points per game. In 12 minutes, she filled up the box score, contributing a career-high eight points to go with five rebounds and three assists in front of her hometown crowd.
In the wake of the 53-point obliteration, Chancellor brushed off suggestions about the competition level, or lack thereof, from the Colonels.
“Don’t talk to me about competition,” he said. “Nicholls was better than Lehigh. We came in here tonight and played with passion.”
As a comparison, he offered up the Colonels’ near-upset of fellow Southeastern Conference member Ole Miss, a 64-60 loss in Oxford.
Regardless of opponent, 50-point blowout wins are nearly impossible to find fault with.
LSU submitted by far its best shooting performance of the year, hitting 56 percent from the field after failing to break 40 percent in six of its first eight games.
The Lady Tigers also dominated on the defensive end, holding Nicholls State to an atrocious 19.6 shooting percentage. The Colonels shot just 1-of-24 from behind the arc, pressured into bad situations as the deficit got larger and larger.
If there was one quibble Chancellor had with his players, it was their own 3-point shooting. The Lady Tigers were 5-of-19, a disappointing number he attributed to ball movement.
“When we went inside-out, we shot it well, but when we went outside-outside, we didn’t shoot it as well,” he said.
The Lady Tigers will have an 11-day break for final exams before playing their next game against South Alabama. One game after sitting with a 4-4 record and worrying about a second consecutive loss to an in-state school, Chancellor now sees possibilities for greatness as the season progresses.
“I thought [senior guard Latear] Eason ignited us in the second half with running the ball,” he said. “We just jumped on them tonight. We played like I thought we could.”
 
—-
Contact Ryan Ginn at [email protected]