Sportswriter Chris Gibson takes a look at the LSU women’s basketball team’s season. This is the second part of a two-part series, focusing on the postseason and what is next for the Lady Tigers basketball team.
Postseason ups and downs
LSU earned the No. 2 seed heading into the Southeastern Conference Tournament in North Little Rock, Ark. Ironically, the Lady Tigers downed all three teams that previously had beat them — Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Arkansas.
Sliding by tough host Arkansas, the Lady Tigers then fought through a determined Vandy team to set up a SEC final between the conference’s top two teams in LSU and Tennessee. It would be point guard Temeka Johnson’s time to shine for the Lady Tigers.
Johnson, a quick 5-foot-3 point guard, dissected the Lady Volunteer defense on her way to 24 points and nine rebounds as LSU thrashed powerhouse Tennessee, 78-62.
      “My mindset tonight was to just come out and play hard, and scoring just came easy,” Johnson said after the game. “Everybody likes to play us in a zone, and I guess Tennessee being stubborn likes to play us man. That gets me motivated.”
By virtue of the victory, LSU earned its first ever No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, despite the objections of some women’s basketball analysts across the country.
LSU blew out Southwest Texas St., the 16 seed, in its first game and got by a scrappy Wisconsin-Green Bay team to set up an intriguing Sweet 16 match up with in-state rival Louisiana Tech.
With many intriguing storylines — the fact that the match up between two Louisiana teams was being played in Palo Alto, Calif and that Johnson would be playing with two fractured bones in her face — the game would live up to hype.
Down 50-33 with what appeared to be little hope, the Lady Tigers went on a 16-0 run and eventually overtook Lady Techsters, 69-63. The stage was set for an Elite 8 match up between No. 1 seed LSU against No. 2 seed Texas for the right to go to Atlanta and the Final Four.
After taking an 11-4 lead, the Lady Tigers could not handle the inside game of Texas and found themselves down by a significant deficit in the second half. The LSU comeback and the Lady Tigers’ season dream of making the Final Four both fell short, 78-60.
“We didn’t seem to have an answer for anything they wanted to do after about the first two, three, four minutes of the game,” Gunter said after the game. “I thought for whatever reason, they seemed to want the game a little better, they worked a little harder.”
The future — 2003-2004 outlook
The Lady Tigers will return three starters next season — Johnson, guard Doneeka Hodges and SEC Freshman of the Year Seimone Augustus.
LSU will return solid contributors in the form of 6-foot-5 Crystal White and forwards Wendlyn Jones and Roneeka Hodges. White is expected to contend for the starting center job vacated by senior Aiysha Smith.
The Lady Tigers will be returning juniors Florence Williams and Tillie Willis and center Treynell Clavelle.
LSU has three signees that will include all guards — Khalilah Mitchell, Amber Long and Marian Whitfield.
The 5-foot-11 Mitchell is from St. Mary’s High School in New Orleans, scoring 18 points and 10 rebounds her junior season.
Long, a 5-foot-6 guard, is from Dutch Fork High School in Irmo, S.C. She averaged 16 points per game as a junior.
Whitfield is a 5-foot-9 guard from Augusta, Ga. who averaged 16 points per game as a junior.