The LSU women’s basketball team was so close to making a return to the Women’s NCAA Tournament. It was projected to be a seven seed by ESPN bracketologists after an impressive 20-win season highlighted by five wins over ranked opponents. The players were ready to compete and give it their all to have a chance to play in the Final Four which was to be hosted just an hour down the Mississippi River in New Orleans.
But it never happened. The experience the Lady Tigers had worked so hard for was snatched from them at the very last second. COVID-19 forced the NCAA to cancel all remaining seasons for the 2019-2020 year.
Fast-forward to October. The long wait for the Lady Tigers is over, and with nine returning players, they are ready to try again.
“I like the fact that we’ve got a returning nucleus,” Head Coach Nikki Fargas said to media on Tuesday. “I know they are starving to play, considering how the season had to end for so many student athletes, with not being able to participate in the NCAA Tournament.”
Fargas and her team have been through a lot. The mental and emotional toll the entire situation took on her players has been duly noted but not forgotten.
“I don’t think you can flush what the kids went through,” Fargas said. “It’s a way for them to understand the reality of the world that we live in, but also how precious it is to have time with your loved ones and get to know your teammates a little bit better.”
Cumulate the spread of COVID-19 with the racial injustices occurring across the country, and the players truly have seen a lot of adversity. However, Fargas does not want to shield her players from the realities of either issue. She wants to face the “two pandemics,” as she called them, head on, together as a team.
“Education is going to be key through all of this,” Fargas said. “We’ve got to come together and realize that there is a community, the black community, that is being affected by social injustice, social, racial and economic,injustices.”
“It’s like anything that you do in competition, you have to know your scouting report. You have to know what that looks like. And then in scouting, what’s our defense, what’s our offense against this? What are we doing offensively to promote a place of equity? What are we doing offensively to promote a place of being inclusive? What are we doing offensively to promote a place of justice?”
Fargas wants to use sports as a means to promote social change because some of the lessons learned playing the game can be used in the real world situations the human race faces today.
“I can take kids from all over the world, all over the country, and they can play. They can be of different cultures and races, but they believe in each other. They have an understanding of each other, and there’s an empathy there that they feel for each other. I think if we can take a step back and utilize some of the things that we’re taught in athletics and apply them now, we can make this a better place for people of all races and all colors.”
The team has held weekly Zoom calls to maintain team chemistry and strengthen bonds over long distances. With three players living abroad — Awa Trasi and Sarah Shematsi are from France, and Sharna Ayres is from Australia — the team would meet at 4 p.m. exclusively because that was the only time all players could reasonably attend the meetings.
“It was seven o’clock in the morning in Australia, and then it was eleven o’clock at night in France, but that was the one time that we could really get everybody together,” Fargas said.
Since the return to campus, players have been socially distant with their workouts, with weight training and shootarounds in small groups and the team even assigning everyone their own basketball and basket. The players have remained in shape throughout the offseason, which is good news if they hope to keep up with Fargas’s fast paced, exhausting offensive attack.
The returning nucleus Fargas mentioned is headlined by two of LSU’s three leading scorers last season, seniors Khalya Pointer and Faustine Aifuwa. Aifuwa figures to be LSU’s primary post threat, hoping to improve on a season that saw her post 13.0 PPG and 7.9 RPG.
“She is going to be one of those players that can dominate the league,” Fargas stated. “I like the fact that she is one of the best post players in the country. She’s one of the best rebounding shot blockers. She has a nice touch around the basket.”
Fargas mentioned that the coaching staff has worked hard with Aifuwa to extend her range and become a greater 3-point threat in order to broaden the range of her game and to take it to a professional level.
“The more that we add, the more layers that we add to Faustine’s game, the more versatile she’s become and the more of a defensive nightmare she’s become,” Fargas said.
Pointer finished the 2020 season as the top offensive player, averaging 14.8 PPG, 4.0 RPG and 4.8 APG. Without her leadership and selflessness, it would be difficult for the Lady Tigers to facilitate an offense. She has also shown her irreplaceable effectiveness in LSU’s perimeter defense.
“Khalya has been unbelievable for our team,” Fargas said of her veteran point guard. “She’s one of the best point guards in the country. She’s somebody that has shown over and over in big games, how she can take over a game.”
Newcomers that stands out are junior college transfer from France, Sarah Shematsi, and redshirt freshman native Australian Ayres. Shematsi played on the South Plains College women’s team last season, which was ranked third in the NJCAA by the season’s end.
“This kid is going to be a pro,” Fargas complimented Shematsi. “She’s showcased how well she can stroke it from deep, but she’s a big guard for us. She can play multiple positions.”
Ayres started her career at Marquette but transferred shortly after and had to sit out a year due to NCAA eligibility rules. She is a quick, shifty guard who is not afraid to shoot the ball.
Expect this team to work hard and keep a perspective on the things that matter, but also compete relentlessly to bring LSU back to championship caliber success. In a time when every day threatens the team with new challenges, the Lady Tigers are conquering each one together.