LSU’s volleyball team won’t be playing tonight, but its focus will be just as intense as a game night, as the Tigers will have a chance to capture the Southeastern Conference title outright when Kentucky travels to Tennessee.A Kentucky loss means LSU will be the outright SEC Champions. “We will all be gathered around Sunshine’s [sophomore libero Lauren Waclawczyk] computer keeping track of the match,” said senior middle blocker Brittnee Cooper.LSU has not won the SEC regular season championship outright since 1990. The Tigers shared the title in 1991 with Florida.The Tigers will return to work tomorrow morning when they travel to Houston for a Friday night match against Rice.There is good news for many of the Tigers — seven players on LSU’s roster hail from the Lone Star State, two of whom are from Houston, where Rice’s campus is located.That means many of the Tigers will get to spend Turkey Day with their families.All it took was the mere mention of Texas for Waclawczyk’s face to light up.”Texas! I’m so excited,” the San Antonio native said. “It feels good to have your family around you. I love Texas, so it’s fun to be playing in Houston.”The No. 17 Tigers (23-5, 18-5 SEC) will have to watch out how much tryptophan they ingest though, as Rice isn’t a team for LSU to sleep on.The Owls (22-8, 11-5 C-USA) finished fourth in Conference USA’s regular season with an 11-5 record. As a No. 4 seed in the conference tournament, Rice knocked off No. 1 seed Southern Mississippi, 3-1, in the semifinal round before defeating No. 2 seeded Tulsa, 3-1, to take home the tournament title.Just like in collegiate basketball, a volleyball tournament title earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Because the pairings for the tournament are based on geography, there is an outside chance Friday’s match may be a preview of things to come in the NCAA postseason.”Rice is a very good team,” said LSU coach Fran Flory. “They are a team that is going to challenge us defensively because they keep a lot of balls off the floor. I would put them on the category of a South Carolina or Tennessee in terms of backcourt defense.”- – – -Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]