BATON ROUGE — Flau'jae Johnson poked the ball out the unexpecting hands of Veronica Sheffey off the inbound pass, gathered the ball before making an uncontested layup. As the whistle blew for a timeout called by the Aztecs bench, she blew a kiss to the student section.
Her steal-and-kiss capped an 11-0 run for LSU women's basketball that opened the March Madness first-round contest against San Diego State.
Aneesah Morrow hit a bankshot fadeaway jumper at the first-quarter buzzer then turned and blew a kiss toward the Tigers' bench.
Fully healthy for the first time in three weeks, LSU kissed San Diego State goodbye, defeating the Aztecs 103-48 inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on Saturday night.
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No. 3 LSU (29-5) advances in the March Madness bracket to face No. 6 Florida State (24-8) in the second round Monday night (ESPN).
In Morrow and Johnson's first games back from a foot sprain and shin inflammation, respectively, both looked to be fit and showed no signs of rust. Morrow collected 12 points and eight rebounds by halftime and finished the game with her 28thdouble-double of the season at 12 points and 12 rebounds. Morrow saw 25 minutes of playing time.
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Johnson made the game's first basket, a step-in 3-pointer, en route to putting up a game-high 22 points. She played just 22 minutes as the game was a blowout for much of the way.
LSU got 45 points from its bench and scored 25 points off 19 SDSU turnovers.
Start time:9:15 p.m. CT
TV info:ESPN
Location:Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
LSU:How healthy will Flau'jae Johnson and Aneesah Morrow be? Johnson has been sidelined since Feb. 24 with shin inflammation while Morrow re-aggravated a foot sprain last time two weeks ago in the SEC Tournament against Texas. Kim Mulkey has said that both are fully cleared and ready to go for LSU's NCAA Tournament opener against the Aztecs. How much they'll play remains to be seen.
San Diego State:The Aztecs were the No. 4 seed in the MWC Tournament but they upset the top two seeds in No. 1 UNLV in the semifinals before knocking off No. 2 Wyoming, 72-68, in triple overtime to make March Madness. Veronica Sheffey leads SDSU in scoring at 11.4 points per game.
Spread:LSU -26.5
Over/Under:143.5
Moneyline:N/A
LSU 81, San Diego State 66: LSU hasn't been healthy in three weeks. But against the Aztecs, LSU could advance without its full complement of players as it possesses more athleticism and has been on this stage more often.
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Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com .
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Healthy LSU routs San Diego State in Women's March Madness opener
