LSU fans took bated breaths as Angel Reese collapsed on the ground with an injury to her right leg before limping off the court during the team's SEC tournament rout of Auburn. The score at the time read 71-37 with a tick under 7 minutes left in the contest, the result all but decided.
As she put a spin move on Taylen Collins inside the paint, Reese seemed to have hyperextended her knee, immediately hopping on her left leg out of the baseline. She was immediately substituted as trainers took a look at the injury.
Till then, it had been as one-sided a contest as imaginable. Despite Auburn giving the Tigers some competition during the regular season, splitting a pair of close games, their tournament encounter was anything but. Thanks to missing their first 14 shots, Auburn was in far too big a deficit to overcome the rest of the evening.
Eventually, it led to a 78-48 victory for Louisiana Tech. Angel Reese, on her part, had been her usual dominant self in the game till then. An 18-point, 11-rebound outing highlighted her growing comfort as a scorer and her already elite rebounding skills.
Since then, updates have been made that the injury isn't too serious and she will play in the team's next SEC Tournament game against either Mississippi or Florida in the semifinals. Despite the Reese injury, the highlight of the night was without a doubt Flau'jae Johnson, who had a point to prove in this specific matchup.
Flau'jae Johnson reveals why this game was important to her
Leading the charge with 25 points, 17 of which came in a wholly one-sided first half, Johnson was the woman in charge, ensuring that the Tigers walked out with a comfortable victory. After the game, Flau'jae would reveal how important this victory was for her and her team, even calling it personal.
"They won a game they weren't supposed to win (referring to the earlier encounter in the regular season when Auburn won 67-62)...We just knew we had to come out and push because that one was personal."
While she credited Auburn for their performance with multiple players going down at various points in the evening, Johnson's confidence in her squad was apparent. For last year's NCAA winners, it might be a necessity to have that confidence if they want to repeat as winners this year.
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