LSU women’s basketball heading to Final Four after taking out tournament Cinderella Miami in defensive battle

LSU is heading back to the Final Four for the first time since 2008.

The No. 3-seeded Tigers women’s basketball team outlasted No. 9-seeded Miami for a 54-42 win in a low-scoring Elite Eight affair on Sunday night, avoiding falling victim to a Hurricanes team that had already pulled off three upsets over No. 8-seeded Oklahoma State, No. 1-seeded Indiana and No. 4-seeded Villanova.

Despite an overall poor first half offensively — the team shot just 30% from the field and missed all six of its attempts from beyond the arc — LSU led 10-8 after the first quarter and took a 26-20 lead to the locker room after ending the second quarter on an 8-2 run.

It was a big half for Alexis Morris, who scored 10 points on 5 of 9 shooting.

It wasn’t a great half for Miami shooting the ball either, but the Tigers struggled to contain Hurricanes star guard Jasmyne Roberts, who made 8 of 10 shots in the first two quarters and scored 16 points.

LSU stretched its lead to 11 at the end of the third quarter and by as much as 16 early in the fourth, but Miami rallied a bit and cut that lead to just eight points with 4:24 to play. The Hurricanes never got closer than that, though.

Morris finished with a team-high 21 points, while Angel Reese recorded her 32nd double-double of the season — an SEC record — with 13 points and 18 rebounds.