LSU women already look like they’ll excel in one key area | LSU

It was déjà vu all over again on Friday in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

A mid-major team took on the LSU women’s basketball program, rained down a barrage of 3-pointers and left Baton Rouge with a lopsided loss.

The four squads that have faced the No. 9 Tigers (4-0) so far this season have drawn iron on a combined 106 shots from beyond the arc, which has allowed coach Kim Mulkey’s new-look group to grab a host of long rebounds and turn them into a slew of transition points at the other end.

“They just spread the floor,” Mulkey said on Tuesday after a win over McNeese State, “and they’re all guards.”

Yes, LSU has played four overmatched, undersized opponents that like to shoot 3s. But what the Tigers have done on the defensive end of the floor against those teams is impressive nonetheless – and it could be a sign that they once again have the defensive chops they need to slow down the Southeastern Conference’s top teams.

Just look at the paint points. Last season, in the 12 games LSU played against mid-major foes, it gave up an average of 17.2 points in the lane.

This season, the Tigers are surrendering, on average, only six points in the paint per game. They allowed Southeastern Louisiana to score 12 in their opener on Nov. 2, then gave up just four each to Texas Southern, McNeese and Denver.

None of the four teams could score anywhere inside the arc against the Tigers. They didn’t just all hit their season-high in 3-point attempts in Baton Rouge; they combined to take an average of a dozen more long-range shots when they faced LSU than they did in the other games they’ve played this year.

That’s an example of Mulkey’s system working as designed. All five of LSU’s starters – Jada Williams, MiLaysia Fulwiley, Mikaylah Williams, ZaKiyah Johnson and Grace Knox – have the length and agility they need to defend the perimeter and seal off drives to the rim, so they form a unit that’s uniquely equipped to stonewall the kind of teams they’ve faced so far this season.

“Can we defend them?” Mulkey said. “OK, well, if we can defend them, what’s our best five out there to defend them? Is that the same five I need on the offensive end to attack them?

“It’s a game of chess. Sometimes you make the right decisions. Sometimes you don’t.”

The tougher tests are coming. LSU must still face Villanova (1-2), North Carolina State (3-1), No. 23 North Carolina (1-2) and No. 4 UConn (3-1) before it opens SEC play on Dec. 31. All four of those teams can force the Tigers to defend both on the perimeter and at the rim.

But Mulkey and her staff couldn’t have asked for a better defensive start than the one they’ve gotten from their new-look bunch through four games.

LSU is holding its opponents to 34.3 points per game on 20% shooting, and it’s grabbing 56 rebounds per game. The Tigers are also forcing a turnover on 34% of their defensive possessions, according to Her Hoop Stats, which ranks ninth among all Division I teams.

“I think a lot of us have very good motors,” Fulwiley said. “We can go, we can run, we can defend, we can pick up full-court.

“I think that has a lot to do with conditioning, and I think we do well at conditioning, so I’m excited to see how well we defend against better teams.”