LSU struggles, survives
Foul shooting gets Tigers through 24-turnover mess
LSU star Angel Reese couldn’t seem to make a shot and the Tigers turned the ball over a seasonhigh 24 times in Baton Rouge, La.
The defending champions just had to be thankful — if not relieved — that they’re good enough to overcome even that.
Reese overcame 1-of-7 shooting to finish with 10 points and 19 rebounds, and No. 3 LSU fended off a feisty performance by 14th-seeded Rice, 7060, in their women’s NCAA Tournament firstround meeting.
“Ugly win. It’s March. Survive and advance,” said Reese, who scored 8 of her points on foul shots. “I couldn’t make anything tonight. But it’s like that; it happens sometimes.
“If you’re not impacting the game offensively then there’s other things you can do,” Reese added. “Defense and rebounding is something that I also try to bring to the table as much as I can.”
Aneesah Morrow added 15 points, while Flau’Jae Johnson and Mikaylah Williams each scored 14 for the Tigers (29-5).
Middle Tennessee rallies
Middle Tennessee guard Savannah Wheeler, the Conference USA player of the year, missed her first six shots and committed two fouls and a turnover during the first 18 minutes of the Blue Raiders’ game against Louisville.
But when she finally scored her first points on a layup with 1:16 left in the first half, a game that Louisville had dominated early was about to change.
Wheeler scored 20 of her 22 points in the second half, and No. 11 seed Middle Tennessee stormed back from 18 points down to defeat sixthseeded Louisville, 71-69, in a first-round game.
“I kept telling myself to keep staying aggressive and just keep playing within myself, and eventually one is going to fall,” said Wheeler, who hit five of her seven second-half shots, including all three 3pointers she put up. “We’re a team that we don’t give up. We keep playing hard. We keep fighting.”
Jalynn Gregory scored 24 for MTSU (30-4), which has won 20 straight and has not lost since falling to Grand Canyon on Dec. 30.
MTSU will play Sunday against No. 3 seed LSU, the defending champions.
Maine’s tournament run ends
Jacy Sheldon had 19 points and three other Ohio State players scored in double figures as the Buckeyes ran away from Maine, 80-57, in the first round.
The bigger and faster Buckeyes (26-5) swarmed the Black Bears (24-10) with a stifling press, forcing 22 turnovers. Second-seeded Ohio State advances to play seventh-seeded Duke on Sunday.
Anne Simon led Maine with 25 points and Olivia Rockwood had 15.
Maine came out firing, with Rockwood hitting 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions. The Black Bears were up by one with 3:25 left in the first quarter but never led again. The Buckeyes had an 11-2 run to finish the first quarter and outscored Maine, 21-8, in the second to lead 43-24 at the break. Maine got no closer than 17 points in the second half.
“[Maine] showed up like a championship team should, and they were ready to go, and they made some big shots early,” Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff said. “I think we adjusted finally to kind of get them out of the rhythm.”
Maine was looking for its first NCAA Tournament win since 1999.
“I think we said it in the locker room. That’s the standard. The standard is making it to the NCAA Tournament,” Black Bears coach Amy Vachon said. “We know it’s difficult. We haven’t been here for five years. We are fortunate to come to two in a row. We went on a little drought. We know how hard it is. We don’t take it for granted. But that’s the standard, and that’s the goal every single year. To make the NCAA Tournament, and to compete like heck.”
Milestone night for Iowa State
Audi Crooks grabbed the Iowa State name plate and emphatically placed it on the big NCAA Tournament bracket board, into the space for the second round.
She absolutely earned the chance to do so. “That was so fun, my teammates soaked me in water,” she said, still grinning from ear to ear some 30 minutes later.
The freshman star scored a career-high 40 points on 18-for-20 shooting in her sensational NCAA Tournament debut, and seventh-seeded Iowa State hit all the big shots in the second half to rally from 20 points down and beat 10th-seeded Maryland, 93-86.
The 20-point comeback marked the secondlargest all-time in an NCAA Tournament game, trailing only Texas A&M overcoming a 21-point deficit to beat Penn in 2017.
“I thought that was one of the most entertaining games I’ve ever been a part of,” Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly said, praising his team’s poise to charge back. “So proud of our team, ecstatic for them.”
Fighting tears, Crooks shared how she takes a moment before every game to be spiritual, pray, and remember her father Jimmie who died when she was 16 in 2021.
“I’m just grateful, I can’t say thank you enough to the people that I’m surrounded by,” Crooks said. “When you’re surrounded by people that you love, that care about you, that trust you as much as they do getting you the ball, that speaks volumes to how we play as a unit.”
South Carolina sits starter
South Carolina opened its NCAA Tournament without two starters as forward Bree Hall was held out in the 91-39 win over Presbyterian for what a team spokeswoman said were “precautionary reasons.”
Hall is a 6-foot forward who is tied for fourth on the team at 9.7 points per game.