The Lady Tigers basketball team’s quest to reach the Final Four for the first time in coach Sue Gunter’s tenure begins tonight with the opening of exhibition season.
No. 10 LSU will face the National Women’s Basketball League Elite Team and former Lady Tigers center Aiysha Smith, who is expected to play for NWBL at 7 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Gunter said she is hoping to find some answers to the LSU interior game while center Crystal White heals from a stress fracture in her lower right leg and forward Wendlyn Jones recuperates from a torn anterior cruciate ligament.
Scholanda Hoston is expected to play at the power forward position and junior 6-foot-3 forward Tillie Willis is also going to log significant minutes according to Gunter.
“We still have some injuries so we have to look at our inside play and see how some of the people – that are going to step up and maybe play a little bit out of position – how are they going to handle the situation,” Gunter said.
“We need to see really where we are [on the inside]. I think we feel real comfortable with our perimeter game. We need to see Tillie, [freshman forward] Hanna [Biernacka] , [junior forward] Florence [Williams] play a position that’s really new to them. You can expect to see these kids get a lot of playing time.”
Gunter said she has been particularly impressed with Willis, who saw only limited playing time in the past two years.
“Tillie Willis has looked really good for us,” she said. “Tillie’s a junior this year and really has waited her turn. It is her turn now. You’ll see us give Tillie extended playing time.”
The biggest thing about the game, according to senior point guard Temeka Johnson will be dealing with jitters that come with the first organized competition the team has faced since April 1.
“Hopefully we’ll all get over the jitters,” she said. “Everybody’s excited. I think I’m a little bit more anxious how we’ll look against other female athletes.”
Another common theme for the team is to develop unity before the season begins with a Nov. 15 contest against Villanova University in the Women’s Sports Foundation Tip-off Classic in Eugene, Ore.
“We’re just looking to accomplish chemistry right now,” said sophomore guard Seimone Augustus. “We’re trying to come together as a team. We have a lot of young players on this team that are inexperienced at this level.”
Augustus, the 2003 consensus National Freshman of the Year and preseason Southeastern Conference Player of the Year, is joined by Johnson and senior guard Doneeka Hodges as returning starters from a 30-4 squad that fell one game short of the Final Four last season.
Johnson agreed, echoing Augustus’ feelings about team chemistry.
“My main [goal] for the opening game is for us to gel together as one and to work on everything we need to work on so we’ll be able to beat Villanova,” Johnson said.
While Gunter said the team could use a little bit more practice time, she said it is time to play someone other than themselves. She also said the team will not change its style of play just because the game is an exhibition.
“You’ll see a lot of hard-nosed defense and we’ll look to run,” she said. “We’ll look to run off an opponents’ made basket, off a rebound and off a turnover. We’re going to look to push the tempo.”
The NCAA is experimenting with possible rule changes. In place of the rectangular lane will be a trapezoid lane which international baseball rules use. The three-point line will also be different, as it has been moved 7.25 inches back from its usual distance.