BATON ROUGE, La. – Nunu Agara had career highs with 29 points and 13 rebounds and Stanford led on the road at No. 5 LSU for more than 38 minutes, but was unable to finish off the Tigers in a 94-88 overtime loss on Thursday night.
Stanford (7-2) was ready from the jump, racing out to a 16-5 lead midway through the first quarter that forced an LSU timeout. The Cardinal was up 28-15 through one and hit 13 of its first 20 shots over the game’s first 14 minutes, but the Tigers came back in the second, outscoring Stanford 22-11 in the period and pulling to within two at the break, 39-37.
Coming out for the second half, Jzaniya Harriel hit a 3-pointer, Brooke Demetre made a layup, Agara followed, and Harriel beat Flau’Jae Johnson to her left and finished with a scoop layup to push the Stanford lead back to nine, 48-39, and force another Tiger timeout. That matched the largest lead Stanford would have the rest of the way.
The Cardinal was up five, 80-75, after a pair of Harriel free throws with 23 seconds to go. LSU pulled to within two when Kailyn Gilbert hit a fadeaway 3-pointer with a hand in her face with 17 seconds on the clock. Stanford used its last timeout to advance and LSU was able to crowd Harriel on the catch and cause a turnover. The Tigers forced overtime when Williams hit a free-throw line jumper over Demetre and Elena Bosgana’s attempt at the buzzer didn’t fall.
The Tigers were clinging to an 88-86 lead in overtime with the shot clock winding down when Williams hit a deep 3-pointer with 38 seconds left to put the game out of reach.
LSU’s only lead in regulation was for 15 seconds after Mikaylah Williams hit a triple to open the scoring and Elena Bosgana followed with a three of her own on the next trip down the floor to tie it.
Agara led a quartet of Cardinal in double figures. Brooke Demetre added a career-high 19, Elena Bosgana had 16 and Jzaniya Harriel 15.
According to Sports Reference, Agara is the first DI player to have 29 points and 13 rebounds in a true road game against an AP top-five opponent since Baylor’s NaLyssa Smith had 30 and 15 at No. 3 Maryland on Nov. 21, 2021.
Stanford returns to the floor when it opens up ACC play at California on Friday, Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. on ACCNX.