BATON ROUGE, La. – Despite a spirited effort the New Orleans women's basketball team was unable to withstand the scoring prowess brought on by the home squad as the Privateers dropped their season opener to LSU, 83-49 at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, La. on Tuesday evening.
New Orleans was led on offense by the scoring touch of
Rehema Franklin as the senior guard dropped in 15 points on 6-of-11 shooting, which includes a mark of 3-of-6 from behind the arc. Senior
Asia Woods was also a main contributor as she chipped in 13 points, a team-leading four rebounds and a block while fellow senior
Vaquela Pimpton had a team-high four assists.
Jada Duncantell also scored nine off the bench on 4-of-7 shooting to go with a board and an assist.
The Tigers started the game off on a 6-0 run and didn't look back as they wouldn't give up the lead for the remainder of the contest. The key for LSU's success came in the paint as the Tigers held a 54-16 advantage in that area, with over 65 percent of their offensive scoring coming close to the basketball.
"We kind of knew what LSU was going to bring when it comes down to their inside play," head coach
Keeshawn Davenport said. "They're an inside first team and an outside team second and we recognized how many paint points they scored in their exhibition games so we knew what to expect, we just didn't do a great job stopping it."
The Tigers were paced by Jailin Cherry with 19 points while Ayana Mitchell and Faustine Aifuwa chipped in 15.
Defensively, New Orleans did what it usually does in terms of causing opponents to force errors. The Privateers were responsible for 26 LSU turnovers overall and held the Tigers to just a 22.2 percent clip from three-point range.
"In these strong non-conference games there are learning lessons and this is definitely one of them but us holding true to who we are, I'm proud we forced 19 turnovers," Davenport added. "We are a team that is defensive focused and if we can force LSU to turn the ball over that many times, that is something positive. We just have to do a better job capitalizing when we get those opportunities."
As an offense the 49 points scored by the Privateers represented the second-best scoring effort against the Tigers over their past eight matchups.
Despite all of the forced errors, the Privateers registered 12 points off turnovers and shot just 41.7 percent from the charity stripe.
"We have to take care of the free throws and eliminate second chance points," Davenport said. "I don't think all of LSU's scoring tonight was out of half-court execution. I thought we did not do a great job in transition defense. The fast break and point in the paint totals is something that we are gong to have to work on."
"And not taking anything away from which they do well as they did it well this evening, but we're going to keep our heads up and we're going to keep working," Davenport concluded.
New Orleans returns to the court with another road SEC matchup this Friday, Nov. 8 as the Privateers travel to Fayetteville to take on Arkansas at 10:30 AM CST as a part of the Razorbacks' Elementary Day. The game will be broadcast live on SEC Network + and
ESPN.com/Watch.
