BATON ROUGE, La. -- Very little went wrong for No. 2 LSU
this season.
But when it came to the NCAA tournament draw on Sunday, very
little went right.
The Lady Tigers gathered in the Pete Maravich Center to watch
the selection show. They were joined by about 500 fans who paid $5
to eat jambalaya and see where LSU was headed.
After cheering on cue for the ESPN cameraman, the fans, players
and coaches were left sitting without any sign of the selection
show.
At first the show was deliberately not shown because ESPN was
going to interview LSU coach Pokey Chatman. Later the school was
unable to get equipment needed to project the television show onto
a big screen to work for more than a few minutes at a time.
"ESPN went out of their way to help me with my
one-game-at-a-time philosophy," Chatman told the crowd after the
team gave up trying to watch. "Because I know we play Stetson and
I don't know anything beyond that."
LSU (29-2) was named the No. 1 seed in the Chattanooga Regional.
The Tigers will play Stetson (17-13) Sunday in Knoxville. The other
Louisiana team to make it into the tournament was Louisiana Tech.
"I don't know anything about Stetson," said LSU point guard
Temeka Johnson. "But I will. They made it to the tournament, so
they are definitely someone deserving. They are going to come out
with their 'A' game. We have to make sure we come out with our best
game. We have to bring 100 percent from here on out."
LSU, which plays in its seventh straight NCAA tournament and
15th overall, has its highest ranking ever. The team, although
disappointed they missed the excitement of seeing their draw on
television, did not feel the day was a bad omen.
"Not at all," said Seimone Augustus. "We're not
superstitious. We know it depends on hard work and good play,
nothing else."
LSU lost only two games this season -- both by two points.
Rutgers beat the Tigers in overtime and Tennessee beat them in the
Southeastern Conference championship game last week.
The record, which included a 14-0 regular season finish in the
SEC, the strength of schedule (No. 2), the No. 2 power ranking and
the record away from home (17-2), all led to LSU's top ranking in
the NCAA tournament, Chatman said.
"It was a difficult thing to take this team on the road early
in the year, but we had a vision of how we wanted it to play out
and it was nice to see it come to completion today," Chatman said.
Louisiana Tech (20-9) is in the NCAA tournament for 24th
straight time, but the Lady Techsters were still in unfamiliar
territory on Sunday.
For the first time in a decade, Louisiana Tech waited for the
announcement of the selections without knowing for sure they were
in the tournament.
Louisiana Tech, which shared the regular season Western Athletic
Conference title with Rice, lost to the Owls 86-66 in the
conference tournament. So on Sunday the team gathered at coach Kurt
Budke's house feeling anxious. Then relieved.
Louisiana Tech is an 11 seed this year. They will play No. 6
seed Temple (27-3) in the first round at Storrs, Conn., on Sunday.
"We shared the regular season title in the seventh toughest
conference in the country," Budke said. "We made it to the
championship game of the conference tournament. We had an RPI of 32
and a strength of schedule of 31. Our out of conference schedule
was one of the top 10 toughest in the country. We earned an
at-large bid and bottom line is we are happy to have the chance to
continue our season."
Louisiana Tech and Tennessee are the only two programs to have
participated in all 24 NCAA Tournaments.