Kim Mulkey, No. 9 LSU Take On Georgia In Final SEC Road Contest
Now in the final week of the regular season, No. 9 LSU (24-4, 11-3 SEC) will be at Georgia (12-15, 3-11 SEC) on Thursday night at 8 p.m. CT on ESPN2 for its final regular season road game of the year with a chance to shore of second place in the SEC.
The Tigers will lock up the No. 2 spot in the SEC for the third year in a row either with one more win or with an Ole Miss loss over the next two games. LSU’s final two regular season games are against the SEC’s No. 13 team in Georgia and No. 12 team in Kentucky. Coach Kim Mulkey has led LSU to a No. 2 SEC finish in both of her first two seasons and is looking to make it three years in a row.
Thursday’s game will mark the fourth time LSU has played on a leap day. The game will air on ESPN2 with Carolyn Peck and Courtney Lyle. Patrick Wright and Shaeeta Williams will call the game on the LSU Sports Radio Network, 107.3 FM in Baton Rouge. Prior to LSU’s game Thursday night at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN, the NCAA will have its second top-16 seed reveal of the year, the last one before Selection Sunday.
The game at Georgia will mark LSU’s final true road game of the season. LSU has been selling out arenas or setting attendance records throughout the whole the season. The crowd Sunday at Tennessee marked the Lady Vols’ largest home crowd since 2015. On average for road SEC games, LSU draws 4,323 more fans than the opposing team’s average attendance for the season.
Since dropping back-to-back games against No. 1 South Carolina and at Mississippi State, the Tigers have reeled off six straight wins. The winning streak has been fueled largely by LSU’s defense. LSU has reached its defensive goals of holding teams below 68 points and below 39.9-percent shooting the ball. Even in a game like Sunday at Tennessee where LSU shot a season low 33.3-percent, it was LSU’s defense that fueled the win.
“We’ve just been getting better by being on the floor every day with each other,” Coach Mulkey said. “Practicing, correcting things, getting in the film room, experiencing the losses that make you just a little bit more hungry.”
Also critical in the game at Tennessee was Hailey Van Lith who scored a season-high 26 points, including 12 in the fourth quarter. She shot 50-percent from the field and knocked down five threes. Just as important, Van Lith dished out three assists to go with zero turnovers.
Angel Reese is the reigning Naismith National Player of the Week. She recorded her seventh 20/20 game and sixth 25/20 game last Thursday against Auburn and then had 11 points and 15 rebounds at Tennessee. Reese has recorded at least 15 rebounds in each of the past three games. She currently leads the SEC in both scoring and rebounding and is looking to join Wendy Scholtens (Vanderbilit, 1989 and 1990) as the only players to do so in back-to-back seasons.
Reese and Aneesah Morrow make for one of the nation’s most dominant post duos. They both average a double-double and are two of five active players to have over 2,000 career points and 1,000 career rebounds. Morrow is the only non-senior on that list.
Katie Abrahamson-Henderson is in her second season at Georgia and has the Bulldogs run a matchup zone defense that is different from most other teams LSU plays. With that defense last year, Georgia forced overtime in a game and Baton Rouge that LSU ultimately won. The Tigers won by a larger margin win the teams faced off at the SEC Tournament. But Georgia lost three starters from last year’s roster and this year’s team has not found the same success.
The Bulldogs rank in the bottom half of the SEC in both scoring offense and scoring defense. They did pick up a 16-point win over Florida on Sunday though to end a four-game slide. During that four game losing streak, Georgia battled No. 1 South Carolina hard and had a halftime lead of seven before the Gamecocks came back to win by 14. Javyn Nicholson is the only Bulldog averaging in double figures, scoring 16.7 points per game. She also leads the team with 9.0 rebounds per game.
