Women’s Basketball Drops Season Opener to BYU

The LSU Lady Tiger basketball team opened the 2020-2021 season with a 67-51 loss to BYU Friday night at the South Point Shootout in Las Vegas.

BYU never trailed in the game, jumping out to a 6-0 lead before LSU tied the game at six. At the end of the first quarter LSU was only down 12-10, but BYU doubled up the Tigers in the second quarter 22-10 and had a 34-20 lead at the break.

The Lady Tigers struggled offensively, only making 35 percent of its field goals and three of 18 attempted three-pointers. And even though LSU was able to force 24 turnovers, the Lady Tigers couldn’t make BYU pay for those mistakes, only scoring 18 points off those turnovers.

“We weren’t able to get any scoring off of our bench plays and our starters didn’t shoot a great percentage either,” Nikki Fargas said. “That’s an area of concern for us right now, to be able to turn a team over 24 times and not be able to convert off of those turnovers.”

Senior forward Awa Trasi led LSU with 15 points, and fellow senior Karli Seay scored a career-best 12 points. Redshirt senior Faustine Aifuwa grabbed her first double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds, and also hit her first ever three-pointer in the second quarter. Khayla Pointer, who was selected to the preseason All-SEC team, struggled with only five points in 32 minutes.

“This was not one of our better performances,” Fargas said. “But again we’re still early, first game of the season, and we’ve got to turn this around immediately and get ready to go tomorrow.”

It’s a quick turnaround for the Lady Tigers, who return to to South Point Arena at 5:45 P.M. to take on the West Virginia Mountaineers. The game can be streamed through LSUsports.net and can be listened to on radio on 107.3.