Reese leads LSU in 80-48 win over Coppin State in Baltimore

BATON ROUGE — Angel Reese paced the Tigers with 26 points in her Baltimore homecoming and No. 7 LSU took down Coppin State, 80-48, Wednesday night in a sold out PEC Arena.

Wednesday’s contest marked the first time that a defending women’s NCAA DI National Champion played at an HBCU, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Reese dropped 26 points and brought down 6 boards to lead all scorers on 11-15 from the field. She also tied her career-high with 5 steals. Much of the 4,100 announced crowd came out to see Reese make her return to Baltimore for the first sellout in the history of the PEC Arena.

Aneesah Morrow secured her 7th-straight double-double as she scored 13 points and hauled in 13 rebounds. Morrow’s defense was also impressive as she finished with 3 blocks and 4 steals. 

Flau’Jae Johnson finished with 18 points to mark her 3rd-straight game scoring in double figures. The Sophomore went 7-14 from the field while adding 3 assists and 3 steals. After earning a career high 6 steals against Northwestern State on Sunday, Last-Tear Poa reached another career high on Wednesday. Poa tallied 8 steals to beat her previous high of 6. 

Coppin was led by sharpshooter Tiffany Hammond who scored xx points on x-xx from the three-point line. Hammond added 3 assists and a couple of steals as she accounted for nearly half of the Eagles points. 

Two other Eagles reached double-figures. Laila Lawrence had 11 and Faith Blackstone finished with 10. Lawrence had a double-double as she added 11 rebounds to lead Coppin. 

LSU will return home following the holidays to host Jacksonville at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 30th for its final tune up game before conference play starts.  The Tigers will open conference play on Thursday, January 4th in the PMAC against Missouri at 8:00 p.m.

The Tigers opened up with a 17-3 run led by Reese and Johnson through the first five minutes of action. With just over a minute to go Johnson hit a triple to push the Tigers past the 20-point margin and give LSU a 22-8 lead over CSU. Reese finished the first quarter with 10 points and Johnson had 9. Both Players were 4-5 from the field in the first 10 minutes. 

The Eagles picked up momentum early in the second as they held LSU scoreless for over two minutes on 5-0 run. After only leading by 8, Last-Tear Poa hit her first three of the season to move the lead back to double figures, 31-20. Hammond boosted Coppins scoring late in the quarter as she went 3-4 from beyond the arch. Despite going 1-8 on its last 8 attempts, LSU took a 40-26 lead into halftime. 

Johnson led a 7-0 LSU run to start the third quarter as she scored 5 points in the first two minutes. CSU’s Hammond halted the run with her fifth three-point of the game to make it 47-29, Tigers. LSU defense continued to give the Eagles problems as the Tigers went on a 10-2 run to give them a 30-point lead. LSU held Coppin scoreless for over 2 minutes as it took a 64-33 lead into the final quarter. 

LSU forced an early CSU timeout as Reese capped off a 6-0 run with a coast-to-coast finish through two Eagle defenders. Both teams continued to trade buckets until CSU called a timeout with 2:30 left in regulation. LSU held the Eagles scoreless for the final 3 minutes as it cruised to a 80-48 win in Baltimore.

*LSU press release

LSU’s Kim Mulkey quotes

On bringing Angel Reese back to Baltimore

“When you go back home, sometimes you can have a terrible game just because you’re uotight and really want to do well for everybody. I don’t even want to guess how many people she had on our ticket list. Her grandparents were here and I spent time with them. It’s your home and the best way to say it is your home is where you’re roots are and that’s where you become who you are. I went back to Louisiana for the same reason Angel felt good tonight, because we came back to her roots. She got to see her brother play last night. It makes you feel good.”

Preparing for this game

“I’ve been sick for two days and I was just staying in that hotel room trying to get back on this court. I was at practice yesterday and sat on the sideline and let Bob Starkey run it. Shootaround today I got a little more involved and then tonight I wasn’t going to miss the game. Preparation was different, but that’s OK because I have great assistant coaches and they know what to do and I sit on the sidelines and chime in.”

Assessment of the first half

“We didn’t guard anybody. We just let people blow by us. They did the same thing a lot of teams have been doing to us lately, dribbling the hell out of that basketball and they weren’t going to shoot it until the shot clock went down. It’s smart because it keeps the score lower. We still have to be disciplined defensively and we weren’t. We were gambling, we were reaching, we weren’t moving our feet. In the third quarter we did a little better with that.”

Message to Mikaylah Williams in this shooting slump

“Keep shooting. But also she has to do other things. Her body is too good for her not to get in there and battle for rebounds. Work on your defense. Your game is not always evaluated on how many points you score, it’s going to be evaluated on your impact through the course of a game. Keep shooting, that’s what shooters do. I’ve never met a shooter that didn’t go though something where they couldn’t make a shot, but you don’t change anything, you just let it rip.”