BATON ROUGE — The LSU Lady Tigers, after a 12-day break for final exams, return to action at 2 p.m. Sunday versus Tulane in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. LSU (3-3), ranked No. 14 in the ESPN/USA Today poll and No. 17 in the Associated Press poll, hasn’t played since Nov. 28, when the Lady Tigers posted an 83-62 win at SMU.
Tulane (4-4) also recorded a victory at SMU in its last game, as the Green Wave defeated the Mustangs, 75-66, on Wednesday night.
The LSU-Tulane game can be heard in Baton Rouge on WTGE 107.3 FM and on the Internet at www.LSUsports.net. College Sports Southeast will televise the contest on a tape-delayed basis. The replay will be broadcast Tuesday at 10 a.m. and 10:30 p.m.
LSU leads the all-time series with Tulane, 20-3; however, the Wave upset the Lady Tigers, 76-72, last New Year’s Eve in New Orleans.
“It will be a struggle on Sunday,” said head coach Sue Gunter, who earned her 350th LSU victory last week against SMU. “Tulane is very good, and they always play very well against us. We really got our hind-sides kicked down at Tulane last year, and it made for a depressing New Year’s. I think we’ll be motivated for this game, and we’ll have to play very hard to beat them.”
Sunday’s game marks the return of LSU junior center DeTrina White, who has not played this season due to a misaligned vertebra. White is expected to play on a limited basis against Tulane as she continues to rehabilitate the injury.
LSU sophomore forward Ke-Ke Tardy will also return to action Sunday after sitting out the last two games with a torn quadriceps muscle.
The return of White and Tardy, however, is offset by the loss of senior forward April Brown, who will not play against Tulane.
Brown underwent arthroscopic knee surgery on Nov. 30, and she is expected to be back in the line-up within two weeks.
Brown’s absence leaves LSU with only nine players in uniform on Sunday. LSU has yet to play a game with its full 10-member squad, as injuries have plagued the Lady Tigers through their first six contests.
“It’s going be a chess game, we’re going to have to make substitution decisions as the game goes on,” Gunter explained. “We really feel good about DeTrina right now, the only concern is her level of conditioning. She just can’t go for a really long time.”
LSU is expected to start 5-9 senior Marie Ferdinand (22.5 ppg, 6.0 rpg), 5-7 sophomore Kisha James (8.5 ppg, 2.8 rpg) and 5-11 senior Angelia Crockett (2.0 ppg, 3.0 rpg) at the guards. Roneeka Hodges (11.2 ppg, 7.0 rpg), a 5-11 freshman, and Stacey Newton (1.3 ppg, 1.5 rpg), a 5-11 senior, will occupy the forward positions.
Ferdinand, an all-America candidate, scored a career-high 34 points in LSU’s win at SMU.
Gunter said she has not ruled out the possibility of placing White and Tardy in the starting line-up.
“We’ll see how they feel before the game,” she explained. “It may be since they’re loose and they’re warm, they will need to start instead of sitting on the bench for a long time.”
Tulane will counter with 5-8 junior Sarah Goree (8.6 ppg, 4.1 rpg) and 5-10 senior Taryn Turnbull (4.8 ppg, 2.0 rpg) at the guards, 6-1 sophomore Britt Themann (10.3 ppg, 2.6 rpg) and 6-3 sophomore Gwen Slaughter (9.3 ppg, 8.0 rpg) at the forwards and 6-5 senior Janell Burse (18.0 ppg, 9.6 rpg) at center.
“Tulane presents great problems for us because of Burse, the big center,” Gunter said. “She is really an outstanding player who is very mobile. As far as our match-ups are concerned, we are very limited in what we can do. That’s one area where we are really going to miss April Brown, because April is a very good interior post player, and she does a great job of defending the low block.”
The Tulane contest is the first of five December home games for LSU, as the Lady Tigers will also play host this month to Mercer (Dec. 12), Prairie View (Dec. 18), Delaware State (Dec. 28) and North Texas (Dec. 30). The Lady Tigers played five of their first six games away from home, including three against Top 25 teams.
“It has been very difficult, without question,” Gunter said of the injuries and early-season schedule. “I feel like if we had our full contingent of players, we could have won two of the three games we lost. That’s the downside.
“On the other hand, our young players have gained great experience against some of the best competition in the country. That’s got to help us when we get into conference play. It’s unfortunate we’ve had so many kids out with injuries, but we hope by Christmas, we’ll be back at full strength.”