LSU Loses Aneesah Morrow to Injury, but Gritty Tigers Refuse to Give Up Against No. 1 Texas

By Todd Horne, Executive Editor

Texas’ SEC Player of the Year Madison Booker walked into Saturday’s SEC Tournament semifinal with a figurative spring in her step, knowing LSU’s top defender and leading scorer, Flau’jae Johnson, was sidelined with a shin injury. Just three weeks ago, Johnson had held Booker to 0-11 first-half shooting in Texas’ come-from-behind win over LSU in Austin.

But fate continued to gift the Longhorns. Aneesah Morrow, LSU’s scoring and rebounding sensation, who had lit it up Friday with a tournament-record 36 points and 14 rebounds, hobbled off the court in the third quarter with a left ankle injury and never returned. To make matters worse, LSU’s star Mikaylah Williams picked up her fourth foul and was forced to watch from the bench until roughly six minutes remained.

With LSU’s Big 3 either out or in foul trouble, Texas pounced on the opportunity. Booker’s 25 points propelled the No. 1 Longhorns to a physical and hard-fought 56-49 victory over the ninth-ranked Tigers, sending them forward to the SEC Tournament championship game. Their next challenge? A showdown against fifth-ranked South Carolina—a foe Texas had already met, besting the Gamecocks 66-62 in Austin after a bitter 67-50 loss back in Columbia. On a 15-game win streak, the Longhorns maybe primed for redemption.

The adversity LSU faced this week and the grit it showed battling the No. 1 team in the nation tooth and nail until the bitter end may have the Tigers even more primed to go deep into if not all the way to the NCAA Championship, provided they can heal to full strength. LSU’s struggles on Saturday against Texas were written in its injury report. Already missing Johnson, they now had to contend with Morrow’s exit. Morrow had been a spark, dazzling with 10 first-half points on 5-of-11 shooting before disaster struck on a drive to the basket—her left foot tangling disastrously with Texas center Taylor Jones.

LSU’s head coach Kim Mulkey had a double challenge: grappling with personal grief for a lost family member while delegating in-game decisions to acting head coach Bob Starkey. Mulkey, stationed mid-bench, provided input but couldn’t steer the ship as LSU’s offense sputtered. The Tigers, usually known for lighting up the scoreboard—as evidenced by a record-setting 101-point performance one night earlier—found themselves pinned, shooting a paltry 34 percent from the field with dismal marks from beyond the arc and at the free-throw line.

Booker, meanwhile, was a force to be reckoned with. Though she’d struggled against LSU in their last encounter, Saturday she elevated her game with 18 first-half points, including three 3-pointers, carving open the Tigers’ otherwise stifling defense and leaving LSU scrambling behind a 29-23 halftime deficit. With Johnson absent, LSU turned to Mjracle Sheppard to shadow the 6-1 dynamo, but size simply wasn’t on the Tigers’ side.

In the closing stretches of the third quarter, as Morrow limped off with the score at 32-27 and LSU’s hopes dwindling, Booker’s consistent scoring helped Texas build a decisive 48-40 lead by the early fourth quarter. The Longhorns’ strategy was simple: exploit every mismatch, press the advantage at the line, and never let LSU settle. The result was a commanding win that advanced them to a championship showdown against South Carolina—a daunting task given the Gamecocks’ near-perfect SEC Tournament pedigree in Greenville.

LSU’s injury woes now raise questions about seeding, especially after losses to Alabama, Ole Miss, and Texas have threatened to erode previous No. 2 seed expectations. Despite this, the grit and character the Tigers demonstrated will take a while longer to manifest, if in fact it does. A few weeks longer. But, man oh man, will it be worth the wait if it does.