A maximum of 80 minutes of playing time remain for senior guard Seimone Augustus.
Augustus said she knows it and thinks about it.
“I try not to focus on it,” Augustus said. “But yeah, it’s on my mind.”
On Sunday, the Lady Tigers face off against No. 1 seed Duke at 8 p.m. on ESPN.
Augustus reminisced Thursday about her game-saving play against Stanford on Monday that put LSU in the Final Four.
“You don’t really think,” Augustus said. “It just so happened to be on the defensive end. So you had the opportunity and you take that risk, and everything else is history.”
Augustus said she and her teammates are using the “unfinished business” attitude as motivation for the coming days.
“We’ve made it here before, but we didn’t finish the job, so we do have unfinished business here,” Augustus said. “And we just want to make sure that we handle every part and every aspect of our business once we hit Boston.”
The team is making its third consecutive trip to the Final Four, and the experience could conceivably help the Lady Tigers.
But Augustus said she discounts the idea of team experience by this time in the season.
“I think at that point in time in the year, you work that hard to get there,” Augustus said. “Experience – it doesn’t matter. It’s about who’s playing the best basketball at the best time of the year, which is the end of the year.”
Coach Pokey Chatman said experience has little effect even against Duke, whom the Lady Tigers defeated in the 2005 Elite Eight.
“They’re stronger, they’re faster, they’re deeper and they’re better,” Chatman said. “Maybe in theory you would think that would [work] but not really.”
Augustus said the idea of ending her career without a title haunts her and she does not want to think about losing the last game of her career.
“You never want to end on a sour note,” Augustus said. “If you do end on a sour note, just make sure you gave it everything you could for your team.”
Reflecting on the past four years, the nation’s leading scorer and two-time All-American said she can only use one word to describe her career if she won a national championship.
“Unbelievable,” Augustus said. “That’s the word to describe it. I don’t know any other player that came here and did everything that I have done.”
In Augustus’s career at LSU, she has guided the Tigers to 121 wins compared to just 12 losses including postseason play.
“Four years we’ve been consistent with our success rate,” Augustus said. “So actually, it will be some tough shoes to fill.”
But Augustus said she wants is two more wins and would not mind some collectibles to add to her two trophy cases at home.
“I always have room for trophies,” Augustus said. “Some tournament MVPs, some player of the year awards, a little of this and a little of that.”
 
Contact Kyle Whitfield at [email protected]