By ANDRE CHAMPAGNE, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
In a packed house that included Stephen A. Smith and members of the Ole Miss football team, the spotlight didn’t matter. The LSU women’s basketball team was determined not to let Ole Miss spoil its bounce-back effort after last week’s Valentine’s Day loss to South Carolina.
No. 7 LSU earned a 78-70 win over No. 17 Ole Miss on Thursday evening at the Sandy and John Black Pavillion.
The Tigers held Ole Miss (21-7, 8-5 Southeastern Conference) without a field goal in the fourth quarter, limiting the Rebels to 0-of-17 shooting and rallying from a 13-point deficit.
“I think we were very tough,” junior guard MiLaysia Fulwiley said after the win. “We relentlessly competed to contest and we just had each other’s back. We were determined to get stops and I think that’s what we did.”
Junior guard MiLaysia Fulwiley led LSU with a career-high 26 points on 10-of-18 shooting. Head coach Kim Mulkey praised Fulwiley as a key catalyst in the team’s comeback.
“It starts with MiLaysia,” Mulkey said after the win. “She’s just so quick and she makes everybody else play quicker and we just got a lot of transition buckets.”
Both teams traded baskets early in the fourth quarter, but LSU (23-4, 9-4 SEC) initially struggled to cut into the deficit. Fulwiley converted a contested layup to make it 69-61 with 5:34 remaining, sparking a momentum shift.
She then ignited the Tigers with a steal and took it coast-to-coast, finishing at the rim to trim the lead to 69-65. Later, sophomore guard Jada Richard knocked down a midrange jumper to tie the game at 69 with 3:29 to play. Fulwiley gave LSU its first lead of the quarter, 71-69, at the 3:17 mark. Senior guard Flau’jae Johnson extended the lead to 74-70 with a transition layup, and Fulwiley later sealed the game for the Tigers with a contested layup, making it 76-70. LSU outscored Ole Miss 24-7 in the final ten minutes.
Fulwiley made a pair of free throws to cut Ole Miss’ lead to 47-45 with 7:07 remaining in the third quarter. The Rebels answered with a transition basket off an LSU turnover to extend their lead to 52-45. Freshman forward Grace Knox was called for a shooting foul and then assessed a technical foul on the same possession after taunting. Senior guard Cotie McMahon converted all three free throws to make it 55-45, and Ole Miss followed with another three-pointer to cap a six-point possession, stretching the lead to 58-46 with just over five minutes left in the quarter.
Fulwiley later finished a 6-0 LSU run with an easy layup to trim the deficit to 58-51 with 3:10 remaining. Ole Miss carried a 65-54 lead into the fourth quarter.
Ole Miss opened up the second quarter with a finish down low to cut the deficit to 26-23. After the teams traded baskets for several minutes, the Rebels tied the game at 31-31 on a midrange jumper with 5:46 remaining. Ole Miss then took its first lead since the 9:40 mark of the first quarter, knocking down a three-pointer to go up 34-31 with 3:45 left. Sophomore center J’Adore Young beat the buzzer to send the Rebels into halftime with a 43-37 advantage. McMahon led the team with eight points in the quarter. Ole Miss outscored LSU 22-11.
LSU drew first blood in Oxford. After missing two critical free throws with 45 seconds remaining against South Carolina in the previous game, senior guard Flau’jae Johnson responded with a strong start, scoring nine of the Tigers’ first 11 points. Later, junior guard Mikaylah Williams hit a transition three to push the Tigers’ lead to 19-10 with 4:24 left in the first quarter. Ole Miss trimmed the deficit to three after a transition layup with 1:31 remaining in the period, but LSU held a 26-21 advantage heading into the second quarter. Johnson led the Tigers with nine points on a perfect 3-of-3 shooting.
LSU returns to action on Sunday where it will host Missouri (16-12, 4-9 SEC) at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center (3 p.m., SEC Network).
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