{"id":200093,"date":"2026-03-21T05:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/200093\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T05:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:08:10","slug":"lsu-women-make-quick-work-of-jacksonville-in-ncaa-tourney-womens-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/200093\/","title":{"rendered":"LSU women make quick work of Jacksonville in NCAA Tourney | Womens Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

First, Mikaylah Williams<\/a> banked in a runner through contact. Then she stationed herself beyond the arc on the left wing and waited. She knew a pass was coming her way, and when it arrived, she could step into a 3.<\/p>\n

Once Williams\u2019 shot dropped through the net, the rout was on.<\/p>\n

The LSU women\u2019s basketball team<\/a> didn\u2019t have to sweat its first-round NCAA Tournament matchup against Jacksonville on Friday. There were no jitters. No rust leftover from a 13-day layoff. Instead, the No. 2-seeded Tigers<\/a> thumped the No. 15-seeded Dolphins, winning 116-58 and breaking their program records both for points scored and margin of victory in an NCAA Tournament game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were itching,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWe were itching to play basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams scored 18 points, assisted a career-high 10 shots, grabbed five rebounds and forced three turnovers, while Flau\u2019jae Johnson<\/a> added 20 points, five rebounds and three steals. By halftime, LSU had a 28-point lead and two other NCAA Tournament program records \u2014 one for points scored in a quarter (34) and one for points scored in a half (64).<\/p>\n

If the Tigers (28-5) hit the century mark one more time, then they\u2019ll break Long Beach State\u2019s 39-year-old NCAA Division I record for 100-point games in a season.<\/p>\n

The 49ers wound up reaching the Final Four that year.<\/p>\n

This LSU team can follow suit, especially if it keeps scoring like it did Friday in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.<\/p>\n

The Tigers shot 60% from the field, drained six of their 21 3-point tries and earned 29 trips to the free-throw line. All but one active contributor saw the floor, and seven of them scored in double figures. LSU also turned 15 offensive rebounds into 22 second-chance points \u2013 a key reason why the Dolphins (24-9) didn\u2019t even grab their first board until the 3:37 mark of the first quarter.<\/p>\n

By then, though, the Tigers had already put up 27 points. Just another day at the office for coach Kim Mulkey<\/a> and her revamped roster.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe offense is not surprising,\u201d she said. \u201cWe’ve seen that all year. I’ve said it so many times, I feel like I’m a recorder. We can score the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

LSU was a heavy favorite to win on Friday. Jacksonville \u2014 the second-place Atlantic Sun team that punched its ticket to the Big Dance by winning its conference tournament \u2014 faced two NCAA Tournament teams earlier this season (Texas Tech and TCU) and lost both of those games by a combined margin of 76 points.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the Tigers won by 58, which is tied for their eighth-largest margin of victory this season.<\/p>\n

LSU began the beatdown by scoring the game\u2019s first 14 points, mostly through its signature transition offense. The Tigers missed only three of their first 10 shots, and they rebounded each one, turning them into second-chance points.<\/p>\n

Jacksonville countered by throwing out a zone defense late in the first quarter, and that look helped it slow the game down.<\/p>\n

But LSU still found ways to score. Sophomore center Kate Koval converted layups and earned trips to the free-throw line. Williams, junior guard MiLaysia Fulwiley and freshman guard Bella Hines each drained 3-pointers.<\/p>\n

Koval finished with 11 points and eight rebounds. Freshman forward ZaKiyah Johnson chipped in 16 points. Sophomore point guard Jada Richard tallied 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting, while Fulwiley scored 13 points and blocked three shots. Senior forward Amiya Joyner was the only player who did not see the floor, and Mulkey characterized her absence from the action as a \u201ccoach\u2019s decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacksonville shot 29% from the field and gave away 28 possessions. LSU turned those giveaways into 38 points at the other end. The only thing Mulkey could nitpick was the second quarter \u2014 the frame in which the Tigers allowed Jacksonville to hit 10 of its 17 shots.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s too many points, \u201c Mulkey said. \u201cYou gotta clean that up. Yeah, we will nitpick it, but we won’t nitpick it so much that we’re going to look back at that. We’ve got to move forward. We’ve got to get out of here and watch this game and do a scouting report on them and get ready to practice tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s win was Mulkey\u2019s 150th at LSU. She hit that milestone in only 175 games.<\/p>\n

Mulkey-coached teams have now won 23 straight first-round NCAA Tournament matchups. LSU\u2019s Hall-of-Fame coach has lost only one of those games in her head coaching career, and it was the one her first Baylor team played in 2001.<\/p>\n

The Tigers are trying to reach the Sweet 16 for the fourth year in a row. They were bounced out of the second round of the tournament in Mulkey\u2019s first season in charge, and since then, they\u2019ve won all seven postseason games they\u2019ve played inside the PMAC. LSU has also now hit the 100-point mark in each of its last three early-round contests.<\/p>\n

The Tigers will next play in the Round of 32 at 2 p.m. on Sunday (ABC) against Texas Tech, the No. 7 seed that hung on to beat No. 10 seed Villanova 57-52 on Friday in the first round.<\/p>\n

If LSU wins on Sunday, the team will fly to Sacramento, California, for the regional semifinals. They\u2019re now only three wins away from earning their seventh trip to the Final Four.<\/p>\n

Williams thinks the Tigers can get there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m extremely excited to finish out this season with (Johnson),\u201d she said, \u201cand I hope we end out on a bang.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First, Mikaylah Williams banked in a runner through contact. Then she stationed herself beyond the arc on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-200093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}