No. 7 LSU steamrolls past North Carolina Central

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Flau’Jae Johnson scored 22 points and Aneesah Morrow had her eighth double-double of the season with 17 points and 11 rebounds to lead No. 7 LSU to a 131-44 victory over North Carolina Central on Sunday.

The Tigers (9-0) narrowly missed setting the school record for most points in a game and gave Kim Mulkey her 100th career victory as LSU’s head coach.

Including Johnson and Morrow, eight Tigers scored in double figures. Kailyn Gilbert had 19, Sa’Myah Smith 13, Last Tear-Poa 12 and Mikaylah Williams, Jersey Wolfenbarger and Jada Richard 10 each.

N.C. Central (0-9) was led by Morgan Callahan with 13 points.

Takeaways

N.C. Central: Eagles head coach Terrance Baxter’s team was overmatched in what amounted to a glorified scrimmage for the Tigers. Baxter is paying his program’s budget with road guarantees he’s collecting from Power 4 Conference schools Georgia, Clemson, Florida State, LSU and finally Tennessee on Dec. 14. After the 87-point loss to the Tigers, the Eagles’ average defeat margin so far against the first four Power 4 schools is 65.4 points.

LSU: With the Tigers hosting Stanford on Thursday, Sunday’s game was a chance to stay sharp in front of a live crowd. After a sluggish, sloppy first period, they scored 105 points in the last three quarters.

Key moment

N.C. Central had its best scoring first quarter this season, trailing by just 26-18. Then, LSU dropped the hammer by shutting out the Eagles 37-0 in the second quarter for a 63-18 halftime lead. N.C. Central went 0-for-12 from the field including 0-for-4 in 3-pointers and 0-for-4 from the free throw line.

Key stat

After Johnson scored the Tigers’ first 9 points in their second quarter explosion, LSU kept its extending its lead because it got 20 points off the bench in the period with five subs scoring 4 points each. The Tigers’ bench finished with 65 points, easily a season-high.

Up next

N.C. Central plays just it third home game of the year when it hosts Presbyterian on Wednesday. LSU is home on Thursday against unranked Stanford.

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