Three things we learned from LSU women's basketball upset loss vs Florida

Coach Kim Mulkey's 650th career win will have to wait for another game as LSU women's basketball was upset against Florida in a 73-72 loss Sunday at the Extratech Arena in Gainesville, Florida.

The Tigers (17-3, 5-2 SEC) fell behind early to the Gators (15-5, 5-2) and found themselves in a back-and-forth battle for much of the game. An inability to stop the Florida offense late proved to be costly.

Florida was clutch down the stretch matching every LSU bucket and putting the game away at the free-throw line, making three of its final four attempts to close it out.

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The Gators finished with three players in double-digit scoring led by Kiara Smith who finished with a team-high 23 points. Zippy Broughton and Jordyn Merrit had 14 and 16 points, respectively.

LSU, meanwhile was not able to take advantage of a career-high 35 points from guard Khalya Pointer.

Here's what we learned from the Tigers' loss:

Pointer carries the load

Pointer was the only LSU player in double figures.  Alexis Morris finished with eight points. The rest of the starting five combined for just 22 points.

“It was a game where they started out tougher, more physical guarding us,” said LSU coach Kim Mulkey. “We hung in there. We battled. I thought Khayla Pointer almost single handedly won the game for us.”

Pointer was also the only player to shoot more than two free throws, finishing with 15 attempts and made 12.

Threes were few and far between

In three of its last four games, LSU has managed to shoot less than 10  3-point attempts. In two of those games, against South Carolina and Vanderbilt, the Tigers shot below 40%.

It was more of the same against the Gators as the Tigers shot just two 3-pointers in the first half, missing both. They shot nine  and made one of them on their final attempt of the game.

Most of the team's 3-point attempts came from  Pointer, who took six  and hit the only one.

Meanwhile, the Gators were much more active from 3-point range, taking 17  and making 35%. Merrit had four 3-pointers.

Sloppy performance

The Gators did a good job of not only forcing the Tigers into mistakes but also capitalizing on those mistakes. LSU turned the ball over 19 times and were averaging 13.7 per game going into Sunday's matchup.

Florida took advantage of all their extra possessions scoring 22 points off of turnovers.

The Tigers managed to force 16 turnovers but were only able to score eight points off.

“They won by a point and we get to play them again in a couple of weeks (Feb. 20 in Baton Rouge),”  Mulkey said. “Hopefully we learn from it.”