AUSTIN, Texas — The LSU women’s basketball team could’ve started charting its path to the SEC regular-season title. An NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed was in the cards, too. It just needed to knock off Texas again.
The No. 5 Tigers (21-3, 7-3 SEC) will have to put those hopes on pause for now, though.
Because it couldn’t string enough buckets together in the second half of its road game against Texas on Thursday, LSU lost 77-64 to the No. 4 Longhorns (22-2, 8-2), suffering a defeat that snapped its seven-game win streak.
Star junior Mikaylah Williams scored a team-high 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting. The rest of the Tigers just couldn’t escape Texas’ smothering defense. Flau’jae Johnson was the only other player who scored in double figures, and she missed the only shot she took in the fourth quarter — the frame that the Longhorns used to put the finishing touches on a bounce-back win.
“You got to take care of the ball,” coach Kim Mulkey said. “I just thought the shot selection tonight by our main guards was not very good, and Texas creates a lot of that with how they play defensively.”
When the two teams last met on Jan. 11, LSU picked up one of the most consequential regular-season victories of Mulkey’s tenure. Williams settled things with a tough fadeaway 3-pointer. But the Tigers could win with her late fourth-quarter dagger only because they first defended the paint, controlled the boards and made their free throws.
On Thursday, LSU earned an advantage again in the paint (32-26) and played to a draw on the glass (38-38). Texas, however, just hit too many outside shots, forced too many turnovers and thwarted too many possessions, especially in the second half. The Tigers turned it over 18 times — the most since they gave away 22 possessions in their loss to Vanderbilt on Jan. 4.
The Longhorns shot 42% from the field and 4 of 8 from beyond the arc. Star junior Madison Booker scored 18 points, and freshman Aaliyah Crump scored 16. Star senior point guard Rori Harmon scored 11 points, assisted five shots and forced six turnovers, becoming the Longhorns’ all-time steals leader.
Williams handled most of the Tigers’ scoring. Johnson tallied 11 points, seven rebounds and four assists. MiLaysia Fulwiley chipped in nine points on 4-of-9 shooting but turned the ball over a team-high six times. Freshman forward ZaKiyah Johnson added seven points and seven boards, and sophomore point guard Jada Richard notched just two points on 1-of-10 shooting.
“If you’d have told me at the half we were out rebounding them,” Mulkey said, “and some of the statistical things we did better than them, I would have thought we would have been up, maybe, double digits. But we weren’t.”
Texas found an offensive rhythm and took a 40-36 lead late in the second quarter, putting LSU in its first halftime deficit of the season. The Tigers, though, could feel confident at the break because they were controlling the glass and scoring buckets in their half-court sets. They just needed to take better care of the ball. Their nine turnovers diminished an otherwise productive first two frames.
In the third, Texas decided to stick Harmon onto Williams. The adjustment bothered LSU’s top offensive threat, who struggled to create the space she found so easily in the first half. She took only four shots in the second half, and the Tigers’ offense dried up as a result. No one else could find a way to score.
“I just think for us,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said, “you hold that team to 11 points in a quarter. Like, that’s amazing.”
Texas has now won 39 straight home games. It hasn’t lost in the Moody Center since Jan. 24, 2024.
Because they squared their home-and-home series with LSU on Thursday, the Longhorns’ odds of winning at least a share of the SEC regular-season title jumped from 33% to 47%, according to ESPN Analytics. The Tigers could’ve put themselves in a similar situation had they won, but now they have just a 9% of winning at least a share of the league title.
LSU can climb back into the win column at 1 p.m. Sunday when it faces Auburn (13-10, 2-7) on the road. That game will lead the Tigers into their annual showdown with South Carolina, another possible top-five clash set to tip off Feb. 14 in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
LSU is now 1-8 against South Carolina and Texas since 2021.
