Citizen Wire Services

Slow start costly for UA against LSU

Citizen Wire Services

BATON ROUGE, La. – The 17th-ranked LSU Lady Tigers scored the first 10 points en route to a 77-67 win over 25th-ranked Arizona yesterday.

UA did not get its first basket until the 17:35 mark on a jump shot by Dee-Dee Wheeler.

LSU coach Sue Gunter missed her first game in several seasons, suffering from the flu, but the team was in the capable hands of associate coach Pokey Chatman and assistant coaches Bob Starkey and Carla Berry.

“I was very pleased with the way we jumped out in the game,” Chatman said. “It was nice to come out early and establish ourselves. This is a very good team that we played that will do very well in their conference.”

Wheeler had 27 points on 11-of-27 shooting. CoCoa Sanford had 17 points off the bench, and Shawntinice Polk added 14 points with 12 rebounds for Arizona (11-3), losers for the first time in 11 games.

“I thought we played timid in the first half,” Arizona coach Joan Bonvicini said. “We tried to rely too much on Dee-Dee and Polkey. The lesson you learn is that other people have to step up and play.”

LSU led by 12 at the half and stretched the lead to as much aas 25 points twice, the last a 64-39 edge with 10:28 left.

UA pulled within 71-62 on a three-pointer by Wheeler with 1:39 left but could get no closer.

“We finally were able to put it together in the last eight minutes,” Bonvicini said.

Other games

No. 9 Stanford 77, Washington 69: In Seatttle, Nicole Powell had 23 points and 13 rebounds, and Sebnem Kimyacioglu scored 11 of her 16 points in the second half to lead ninth-ranked Stanford over UW.

Stanford (11-2, 4-0 Pac-10) avenged last season’s loss at Washington (8-5, 1-3). Giuliana Mendiola had 23 points and Andrea Lalum 20 for UW (8-5, 1-3).

Oregon St. 72, Southern California 67: In Corvallis, Ore., Shannon Howell scored 24 points and Brina Chaney added 11 points and 12 rebounds to lead OSU to a come-from-behind victory over USC.

It was the third straight victory for the Beavers (9-4, 3-1), who haven’t opened 3-1 in the Pacific-10 Conference since 1999-00.

Ebony Hoffman had 14 points and 16 rebounds for the Trojans (5-6, 2-1), who saw a two-game winning streak snapped.

UCLA 63, Oregon 57: In Eugene, Ore., UCLA held off a rally to defeat the Ducks 63-57.

UCLA’s Gennifer Arranaga scored a career-high 22 points. The senior entered the game averaging 4.0 points per game.

The Bruins are 6-6 overall, 1-2 in league play. Oregon is 8-6, 0-4.

California 85, Washington State 71: In Pullman, Wash., California’s Nihan Anaz and LaTasha O’Keith posted career highs to lead the Bears (9-4, 2-2) over WSU (4-9, 0-4). Anaz scored 30 points and O’Keith 20.

PAC-10 STANDINGS

Conf. Overall

W L W L

Stanford 4 0 11 2

Arizona 3 0 11 3

Oregon State 3 1 9 4

California 2 2 9 4

Arizona State 2 1 8 4

USC 2 1 5 6

UCLA 1 2 6 6

Washington 1 3 8 5

Oregon 0 4 8 6

Washington State 0 4 4 9

This entry was posted on Monday, January 5th, 2004 at 9:16 am and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: Baton Rouge, College Basketball, College Sports, Louisiana, Pacific 10 Conference, page-5D, Wildcats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.