BATON ROUGE, La. — Angel Reese had 34 points and 15 rebounds — her 29th double-double this season — and third seeded LSU defeated No. 14 seed Hawaii 73-50 on Friday night in the first round of the women’s NCAA Tournament.
Flau’Jae Johnson scored 10 for LSU (29-2), which raced to a double-digit lead in the first quarter and maintained a comfortable lead most of the way.
The Tigers advanced to a second-round match-up on Sunday with sixth seeded Michigan (23-9), a 71-59 winner over 11 seed UNLV earlier Friday.
Reese, an All-America forward, was a force in the paint, as usual, and also was effective defending on the perimeter. She was 13 of 20 shooting, hit 8 of 12 free throws and also had three blocks and three steals.
LSU outscored Hawaii 44-16 in the paint and outrebounded the Rainbow Wahine 40-33.
Kallin Spiller and Daejah Phillips each scored 13 for Hawaii (18-15) which was held 10 points below its average scoring total for the season. Lily Wahinekapu scored 11 for the Rainbow Wahine.
BIG PICTURE
Hawaii: Were held to 31% (16 of 52) shooting overall and made just seven of 32 attempts from 3-point range.
LSU: Reese grabbed six of her rebounds on the offensive end, helping LSU score 17 second-chance points. … The Tigers won comfortably despite missing 13 of 14 3-point shots. … LSU has now gone 55-8 since three-time national champion coach Kim Mulkey left Baylor to coach the Tigers.