With the Michigan Women’s Basketball team set to face LSU tomorrow at 7:30pm, I wanted to do a little preview. LSU is unfortunately undefeated on their home court, where we will be playing them, but they do have two losses on the year. I’ll recap each of those losses below in hopes of seeing a similar result tomorrow. 

As a side note, it seems like the NCAA committee really put a lot of stock in that whole “the B1G is the best women’s basketball conference” thing this year, as they made 6-loss Maryland and 6-loss Iowa both 2 seeds, while making 2-loss LSU a 3 seed. 

Anyways, enough whining about Michigan getting screwed by the committee underrating LSU. (The other 2 seeds Utah and UConn have 4 and 5 losses respectively) Ok I’m done. 

Loss 1: South Carolina 88 - LSU 64, at South Carolina on February 12

I know this looks bad for LSU, but getting curb stomped by South Carolina these days is a bit like getting your ass politely handed to you by UConn back in the day (and also this year when they have two injured stars and are still crazy good), so really LSU just needed to forget this and move on. Which they did by winning the rest of their games until the SEC semi-final.

But to dwell on the past, Maryland-to-LSU transfer Angel Reese scored 16 points, senior point guard Alexis Morris scored 23, but nobody else scored in double digits. When five South Carolina players score in double digits, you are not winning anything except a participation trophy. 

From reading a quick recap and stats, it looks like Aliyah Boston et al. were mostly able to shut Angel Reese down inside, keeping her under her season average 24.5 ppg. LSU got within 5 in the third quarter, but South Carolina quickly put the game away after that. LSU also definitely wasn’t helping themselves by shooting 40% from the field and 20% from 3-point range. 

Takeaways for Michigan: 

1. Limit Angel Reese by having Aliyah Boston on your team. Last year Naz was able to do this pretty effectively, but this year it will be up to Kiser and Williams (also Stuck and Evans) to try and do this. Coach KBA will definitely have a good plan after coaching against Angel Reese when she was at Maryland, so this will come down to whether the post players can execute. 
2. Contain shooters like Alexis Morris, Flau'jae Johnson, and Jasmine Carson, all of whom play significant minutes and shoot above 33% from deep. Laila Phelia will probably get Morris on defense, so hopefully Michigan’s strong team defense can help contain the other two as well. 

Loss 2: Tennessee 69 - LSU 67, SEC Tournament Semi-Final on March 4

Tennessee was down 17 at the start of the second quarter and 14 at the half before staging a comeback over the course of the third quarter to take the lead with 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter. They did this on the back of strong play from senior forward Rickea Jackson and senior guard Jordan Horston.

Tennessee didn’t have a great shooting day, but what stands out from the stats is how many free throws they drew. With 25 attempts to LSU’s 9, Tennessee didn’t have to shoot lights out down the stretch. A quick review of the highlights shows Tennessee getting a lot of offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter and either putting the second attempt down or making free throws.

Takeaways: 

1. Stay strong mentally if you find yourself down. This is definitely a coaching cliché, but with the amount of experience in the starting line-up, hopefully Michigan can claw their way out of any holes they might find themselves in against a very talented LSU team. 
2. High-low connections. The Leigha Brown-Emily Kiser interplay will be especially important, as will kicking it out to Maddie Nolan or Laila Phelia beyond the arc. If Nolan can stay hot like she was against UNLV and Phelia can drive like she did before her injury, Michigan will be in strong shape. 

Let’s make it to the Sweet 16 for the third year in a row!