BATON ROUGE — LSU’s fourth-ranked Lady Tigers basketball team hosts No. 21 Arkansas on Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in the final home game of the 2002-03 season.
The game also marks the final home game in the careers of seniors Patty Hanten, Kisha James, Aiysha Smith, Ke-Ke Tardy and DeTrina White.
LSU (23-2, 10-2 SEC) has a chance to secure the No. 2 seed in next week’s Southeastern Conference Tournament with a victory over Arkansas (19-8, 6-6 SEC). A win would give the Lady Tigers at least a tie for second with the tiebreakers in their favor. LSU is coming off a 68-65 loss to No. 3 Tennessee on Sunday, but had won eight straight prior to that game.
The Lady Razorbacks, who defeated LSU 82-72 in Fayetteville on Jan. 19, have dropped six of nine since that game, including three straight losses.
Seimone Augustus leads LSU into the game. The freshman from Baton Rouge is averaging 15.0 points and 5.3 rebounds per game. Smith is next with 12.8 points and 5.7 rebounds per game, including scoring in double figures in each of the last seven games.
Junior Shameka Christon leads Arkansas. The forward is averaging 14.8 points and 6.0 rebounds per contest, while India Lewis is scoring 14.1 points per outing.
This will be the 21st meeting between the two schools. LSU leads the series 11-9, including a 6-3 mark in Baton Rouge. The Lady Tigers have defeated Arkansas six straight times in the PMAC dating back Jan. 31, 1996.
Following the game on Thursday night, LSU will travel to Nashville, Tenn., to face Vanderbilt on Sunday at 2 p.m. in the final regular season game before the SEC Tournament, which begins next Thursday.