BATON ROUGE — LSU’s women’s basketball team tips off the 2003-04 exhibition season Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center against the NWBL Elite Team.
The Lady Tigers return three starters from a team that finished 2002-03 with a 30-4 record, won the Southeastern Conference Tournament title, earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the Elite Eight.
Senior guards Temeka Johnson and Doneeka Hodges lead LSU as two of those returning starters. Johnson averaged 10.0 points and 5.9 assists per game last season, while Hodges scored 9.5 points and grabbed 2.4 boards per contest. Also returning from the starting lineup sophomore guard Seimone Augustus. Augustus was the consensus National Freshman of the Year in 2002-03, averaging 14.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per outing.
Those three are joined by returnees Florence Williams (Jr., 6-1, F), Wendlyn Jones (So., 6-1, F), Treynell Clavelle (So., 6-4, C), Tillie Willis (Jr., 6-3, F) and Crystal White (Jr., 6-5 C). Jones and White are both expected to miss the preseason exhibition games with injuries. Jones is out with after undergoing right knee surgery in July and is expected to return to action in December, while White is day-to-day with a stress fracture in her lower right leg.
LSU adds four newcomers and a familiar face in Scholanda Hoston, who missed last season, but averaged 10.6 points and 4.2 rebounds per game as a freshman in 2001-02. The newcomers, Khalilah Mitchell (5-11, G), Amber Long (5-6, G), Marian Whitfield (5-9, G) and Hanna Biernacka (6-1, F) are all freshman on the squad.
LSU’s two exhibition games will be played with two rules experiments in place, a trapezoid lane and an extended three-point line. The lane is 7 feet, 8.25 inches wider and the baseline and the normal lane, while the three-point line is 7.25 inches father than the normal line. These rules are in place for all women’s exhibition games and exempt preseason tournaments to determine if the Women’s Basketball Rule Committee will make the changes for future seasons.
Following Wednesday’s exhibition game, LSU will host Latvian Select on Monday at 7 p.m. in the final exhibition game of the preseason before opening the regular season on Nov. 15 against Villanova at 6 p.m. CST in the opening round of the Women’s Sports Foundation Classic hosted by the Univ. of Oregon in Eugene.