Fullerton Opens With Louisiana Tech at Home : Women’s seedings: Titans receive at-large berth in West, while Long Beach gets bye and USC plays host to Utah.

The Cal State Fullerton women’s basketball team received an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament and will play host to Louisiana Tech at 7:30 Wednesday night in a first-round game.

The Titans, who are 24-7 after Saturday’s 71-60 loss to Cal State Long Beach in the Big West Conference tournament championship game, are seeded seventh in the West region, and the Lady Techsters are seeded 10th.

If Fullerton wins, the Titans would travel to Palo Alto to play defending national champion Stanford in a second-round game Saturday.

Drawing Louisiana Tech in the first round is usually cause for dread. The Lady Techsters have advanced to the Final Four in seven of the past nine seasons, and Coach Leon Barmore is the NCAA’s winningest women’s coach, percentage-wise.

But Fullerton Coach Maryalyce Jeremiah is not overly apprehensive about Wednesday’s game. The Titans are home, where they have gone 12-1 this season, and this has been a rare down year--by Louisiana Tech standards--for the Lady Techsters, who are 18-11 after winning the America South Conference tournament title.

“They’re one of the all-time great teams, but they’re not as strong as they’ve been,” Jeremiah said. “We’re at home and that’s a tremendous advantage for us.”

The Lady Techsters have one of the nation’s best guards in 5-foot-7 senior Sheila Etheridge, a four-year starter who is averaging 25.3 points and is shooting 40% (74 of 185) from three-point range. Etheridge has led Louisiana Tech in scoring in all but four games and has scored 40 points or more three times.

The Lady Techsters are a quick, guard-oriented team that, much like Long Beach, relies on its full-court press to create turnovers and easy baskets. But they aren’t as strong inside as the 49ers.

Inside offense is the Titans’ strength with senior center Genia Miller, the conference player of the year who averages 29.6 points, 12.2 rebounds and 4.5 blocked shots.

“It’s their outside game against our inside game,” Jeremiah said. “Etheridge does a lot of great things, but, just like Genia, she can’t win games by herself.”

Penn State, Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia--the top four teams in the country--were given No. 1 seedings in a tournament.

Long Beach (23-7) got the first-round bye it hoped for, and USC (17-11), seeded fifth, will play host to Utah in a first-round game.

Should they get by the Utes, the Trojans will face the No. 21 49ers Saturday at Long Beach.

Long Beach is one of five teams that have been to the tournament every year since the NCAA began sponsoring women’s championships in 1981. The others are Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana Tech.

Nevada Las Vegas (24-6), which tied Long Beach for first place in the Big West, is seeded eighth and will face a tough Texas Tech team in the first round at Las Vegas.

Times staff writer Pete Thomas contributed to this story.