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\nThe No. 5 LSU women’s basketball travels to Austin to take on No. 4 Texas on Thursday night at the Moody Center (Tiger Rag Photo by Jonathan Mailhes). <\/p>\n
\nThe No. 5 LSU women’s basketball travels to Austin to take on No. 4 Texas on Thursday night at the Moody Center (Tiger Rag Photo by Jonathan Mailhes). <\/p>\n
By ANDRE CHAMPAGNE, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter <\/p>\n
The No. 5 LSU women\u2019s basketball team will travel to Austin to face No. 4 Texas on Thursday night at the Moody Center (8 p.m., ESPN). The top-five matchup carries major implications in the SEC standings.<\/p>\n
It will be the second meeting between the teams this season. LSU (21-2, 7-2 Southeastern Conference) defeated Texas (21-2, 6-2 SEC) 70-65 on Jan. 11 in Baton Rouge, outrebounding the Longhorns 44-35 in the win.<\/p>\n
This time, the Tigers can expect it to be a tougher battle on the glass. The Tigers were outrebounded in their first two conference games against No. 16 Kentucky (18-5, 5-4 SEC) and No. 7 Vanderbilt (21-2, 7-2 SEC), but the team has a new mindset when it comes to crashing the boards.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s toughness and it\u2019s grit,\u201d freshman forward ZaKiyah Johnson said after LSU\u2019s 103-63 win over Alabama on Sunday. \u201cHow much do you want to go get the ball? Every time it comes off the glass, it should be yours. And I think that\u2019s the mindset that we\u2019ve gotten to and it helps a lot. We\u2019re going to get it and it should be ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas is expected to be far more aggressive in the paint in the rematch. Longhorns\u2019 6-6 senior forward Kyla Oldacre was one of the most effective players on the floor in the first meeting, posting 16 points and 16 rebounds. Even though she was tough to stop, Oldacre only took nine shots.<\/p>\n
\u201cKyla was six for nine and our guards can\u2019t get her the ball more than nine times and that\u2019s just really disappointing,\u201d head coach Vic Schaefer said after the loss to LSU.<\/p>\n
With Oldacre likely to get more paint touches, Thursday\u2019s game will come down to who controls the paint, which is where LSU has dominated teams recently.<\/p>\n
6-5 sophomore forward Kate Koval has led the charge inside for the Tigers as of late. Over the last four games, Koval is averaging 9.8 points, 9.8 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like just focusing on defense, finishing, running the floor, continue watching film, doing all of those little things just really helps me and overall, the team as well,\u201d Koval said after the win against Alabama.<\/p>\n
Koval will need a stronger performance than in the first meeting, when she finished with no points and just one rebound.<\/p>\n
Ball security will also be critical for Mulkey\u2019s squad on Thursday. LSU turned the ball over 16 times in the first matchup, and Texas\u2019 defense is expected to intensify in the second meeting.<\/p>\n
Another key factor will be LSU\u2019s defense on Texas graduate student guard Rori Harmon. Harmon, who is known as the Longhorns\u2019 engine on offense, was held to two points and two assists in Baton Rouge. She has turned up the heat recently, as she\u2019s averaging 11 points and 4.5 assists per game in the last four games.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s showdown could serve as the first domino to fall in a tightly packed SEC race, with LSU entering the night in second place and Texas sitting right behind in third. A massive road win would allow the Tigers to separate themselves from one of the SEC\u2019s top challengers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have to rely on anybody else winning or losing,\u201d Mulkey said. \u201cGo win seven ball games and you might win your first SEC title.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The No. 5 LSU women’s basketball travels to Austin to take on No. 4 Texas on Thursday night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,62668,52142,46987,34522,27,15715,62669],"class_list":["post-150990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-kate-koval","tag-kim-mulkey","tag-kyla-oldacre","tag-rori-harmon","tag-texas","tag-womens-basketball","tag-zakiyah-johnson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}