BATON ROUGE — The sixth-seeded LSU women’s basketball team will travel to West Lafayette, Ind., to face the No. 11-seeded Arizona State Sun Devils in the first round of the Mideast Region of the 2001 Women’s Basketball NCAA Tournament, it was announced on Sunday afternoon.
The Lady Tigers and Sun Devils will play at 5 p.m. CT on Friday, March 16, on ESPN2. The audio broadcast of the game can be heard right here on LSUsports.net.
LSU (19-10) makes its sixth-consecutive postseason appearance and its third straight in the “Big Dance.” The first-round game will be the first meeting between LSU and Arizona State (20-10, 12-6 Pac 10).
“We aren’t very familiar with Arizona State,” said LSU coach Sue Gunter. “But that is what the NCAA Tournament is all about. We get the chance to go out and prove to people across the nation that this LSU squad is a good basketball team.”
Should the Lady Tigers advance to the second round of the 64-team NCAA Tournament, it will play the winner of sub-regional host and No. 3 seed Purdue and Big West champion and No. 14 seed California-Santa Barbara on Sunday, March 18.
The Lady Tigers upset Purdue earlier in the 2000-01 season, 62-55, in the Blockbuster Classic in Indianapolis, Ind.
“(Having beaten Purdue) will obviously give us a boost of confidence if we get to face them. But our first focus is on Arizona State and winning the first round game.”
The Southeastern Conference placed six teams in the tournament: Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, LSU, Vanderbilt and Arkansas. Tennessee is the top seed in LSU’s region.
“It just goes to show you how strong the SEC is each year. We get six teams in the tournament and it is almost like a down year,” Gunter said.
Other matchups in the Mideast Region include:
No. 1 Tennessee vs. No. 16 Austin Peay
No. 8 Texas vs. No. 9 St. Mary’s
No. 5 Clemson vs. No. 12 Chattanooga
No. 4 Xavier vs. Louisville
No. 7 Virginia Tech vs. No. 10 Denver
No. 2 Texas Tech vs. No. 15 Penn