BATON ROUGE — Highlighted by 15 home games, the LSU Lady Tigers basketball team and head coach Sue Gunter announced its 2002-03 schedule.
“There is a lot of anticipation about women’s basketball at LSU this year and the schedule compliments that,” Gunter said. “That is something to look forward to. The challenge is to be able to step up and handle the schedule that we have to play. It is a tough and very challenging schedule.”
The Lady Tigers will face 10 teams that were in the NCAA Tournament last season, including five of the Sweet 16 teams. Among those five teams are Texas and Penn State. LSU will play host to both teams with Texas visiting the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on Dec. 28 and Penn State coming to town on Jan. 4 for a nationally televised game on CBS.
“Having two games on national TV tells us that people are viewing our program a little differently now,” Gunter said. “These are highly visible opportunities for us and if we are going to step up and be where we want to be then we have got to take advantage of this.”
LSU will also be on ESPN at Arkansas on Jan. 19 as well as on SEC-TV for conference games at Mississippi State and Vanderbilt.
Other key non-conference match-ups include the season-opener at Arizona on Nov. 22, a trip to Florida International’s tournament with Washington State and Virginia Tech in late November and at North Texas on Jan. 2.
The Lady Tigers once again host the Crawfish Classic in December with Louisville, New Orleans and Ohio making the trip to Baton Rouge. Also visiting the PMAC are Florida Atlantic, Alabama State, Southwest Texas and UC-Santa Barbara in addition to the seven home Southeastern Conference games.
“The conference this year top to bottom is better than ever,” Gunter added. “It seems like we say that every year, but every year it is true. You have to really look at Tennessee, Georgia and Vanderbilt, but they are all going to be good.”
LSU will host Mississippi, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and national runner-up Tennessee in the SEC this season.
The road schedule in the conference is just as demanding. The Lady Tigers begin the SEC schedule at Auburn and also visit Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi State and Mississippi.
The Lady Tigers return all five starters from last years’ NCAA Tournament team as well as return DeTrina White from injury and add one of the best freshmen classes in the country with the addition of National Player of then Year and Baton Rouge native Seimone Augustus.