By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – It was certainly a game that could have gotten sloppy.
A team with 11 wins and a 53.1 points per game victory margin vs. a team with 11 losses and a 25.4 points per game defeat.
And, coincidentally, a mismatch that was scheduled as an annual field trip game for area elementary school students.
Fueled by the noise level that sounded like a Taylor Swift concert, No. 5 LSU rarely took its foot off the gas in a 91-33 beatdown of woefully overmatched Morgan State in a Tuesday matinee game.
“That’s definitely one of the loudest games I’ve been in, and I’ve been in pretty full arenas,” said Tigers’ freshman forward Grace Knox, who scored 10 points and grabbed seven rebounds in 16:17 off the bench. “I just loved the energy of the kids. They brought a funness to the game that I hadn’t felt in a minute.”
The crowd of 8,743 sounded double that size, even with an 11 a.m. tipoff. The Tigers (12-0) didn’t disappoint, thanks to LSU head coach Kim Mulkey’s pregame talk with her team.
“There’s some little girl in the stands that wants to be in that uniform one day, that wants to be at LSU as a student one day, maybe not even play sports,” Mulkey told her squad. “There are little girls out there who used to be you. For some of them, this may be the first and last time they ever see you play. Leave an impression.”
The Tigers led the Bears (1-12) from start to finish — by 21 (30-9) at the end of the first quarter, by 32 (52-17) at halftime and by 49 (74-25) after three quarters.
Returning starters senior Flau’jae Johnson and junior Mikaylah Williams, the Bossier City-Parkway star, led LSU with a game-high 14 points each. South Carolina junior transfer MiLaysia Fulwiley added 11 points, and sophomore Jada Richard matched Knox’s 10 points.
Playing at home for the first time since Nov. 20, LSU hit its first four of five shots. A pair of Williams 3-pointers and two ZaKiyah Johnson layups lit the fuse.
The Tigers’ eighth win of the season by 50 or more points was a carbon copy of almost every LSU victory this season.
Too much talent playing unselfishly and with a purpose at both ends of the floor, with the Tigers converting 25 MSU turnovers into 32 points, outscoring the visitors 29-2 in fastbreak points, 17-4 in second chance points and 46-8 in points in the paint.
After missing 12 of 26 layups in Saturday’s 87-61 Compete 4 Cause Classic victory over Louisiana Tech in New Orleans’ Smoothie King Center, LSU made 21 of 31 layups against MSU.
It certainly bolstered LSU’s 55.6 field goal percentage (35 for 63), more than twice as accurate as MSU’s 25 percent.
The Tigers’ suffocating defense allowed just five field goals in the game’s last 29 minutes. MSU scored on consecutive possessions just once in the second half.
But Mulkey, who has said she treats November and December games (almost exclusively scheduled against vastly inferior opponents) as training camp preparing for SEC play, wasn’t overly impressed.
“We just have to get better defensively,” she said. “And that’s not the young players. I’m talking about our older players, too. They got to keep people in front of them. They can’t keep giving up straight line drives.
“We just got to get disciplined (defensive) fundamentals. We gamble too much. We are an exciting team to watch. We don’t want to take that away. We have to know the difference between when to gamble and when to stay in a stance. We’re just not there yet. I don’t know when we will get there. It’s emphasized every day in practice.”
The Tigers have two remaining non-conference games – both at home on Sunday vs. Texas Arlington and Dec. 28 vs. Alabama State – before hosting No. 12 Kentucky on Jan. 1 to open their 16-game SEC schedule.
Four of LSU’s first six league matchups are on the road at No. 13 Vanderbilt, Georgia, No. 8 Oklahoma and Texas A&M.
Besides UK, the lone Tigers’ home game in that stretch is the first of a home-and-home series vs. No. 2 Texas.
Seven players (five freshmen, two transfers) in LSU’s 11-woman playing rotation have no experience playing in the SEC.
Newbies, such as King, have quizzed veterans Johnson, Williams, Fulwiley and Jada Richard, about what’s ahead.
“It’s definitely going to be different, like a level up,” King said. “But I feel once we get there, we’ll be able to adjust. I feel like we’ll do pretty well based on our practices and preparation.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com