LSU women's basketball team faces difficult three-team tournament

BATON ROUGE -- The LSU Lady Tigers (2-3) know they have a lot of work to do to get back on track for the World Vision Classic this weekend.

LSU will travel to Connecticut to take on three teams in three days. They'll play Lehigh (1-3) on Friday, Howard (2-3) on Saturday and then face off with No. 1 Connecticut (3-0) on Sunday. Lehigh and LSU both are coming off heartbreaking losses, LSU to Tulane and Lehigh to Villanova. LSU took Tulane down to the wire but lost 54-52, and Lehigh fell to Villanova 69-68 in overtime.
After Lehigh and Howard, the Lady Tigers will face the reigning national champion Huskies. Connecticut is on an 81-game winning streak, and looking to break the UCLA men's team's record streak of 88 consecutive wins.
"They're good. It's a great opportunity, you know, to get a chance to play UConn and knock them off their streak, but I just say we take a game at a time," said LSU forward Taylor Turnbow. "So when we get to it, we get to it."
First, LSU has to solve its offensive problems. The Lady Tigers are shooting 34.9 percent from the floor and 58 percent from the free throw line, a category in which they lead the SEC last season.
It should help to have All-American forward LaSondra Barrett back. She sat out the Lady Tiger's loss to Tulane to attend her grandmother's funeral.
LSU Coach Van Chancellor said he has been particularly disappointed in the way his team has performed mentally. He preached finishing games at the beginning of the season, but the Lady Tigers mental errors cost them in both the loss to Tulane and a 59-55 loss to Ohio State on Nov. 17.
"Right now I'm really struggling with my team. You get all these TV timeouts, you get timeout after timeout after timeout," Chancellor said. "They're just really struggling going from the timeout to the floor, more than any team I've coached in a long time."
"The last two games we lost right here at home at the end. I told them, I'm not going to say the name, but I told a player defensively, whatever you do, do this right here. She did right opposite of that. They make the winning shot, and Ohio State got two free throws.
Chancellor said he knows what the problems are but he can't seem to fix them.
"That's just being honest about it. I'm not blaming them," Chancellor said.
Despite their struggles in other areas, the Lady Tigers have continued to play solid defense, usually a staple of their program. They've held their opponents to an average of 55 points per game and 34.2 percent shooting.
The Lady Tigers' defense will have to be on its game to stop Connecticut All-American forward Maya Moore, who leads the Huskies this season with 27 points per game
"We played them a couple of years ago and I understand playing Connecticut is always exciting and it is a great basketball school," said senior guard Katherine Graham. "But we're going to be excited to go up against playing against one of the top premier teams of this year. I know everyone's excited. It should be an interesting game."

SOURCE: nola