Louisiana Tech the Target in Bid for Final Four Berth

Is it Louisiana Tech’s regional to lose?

It seems that way, as the Lady Techsters (28-2) prepare to meet Louisiana State (22-7) tonight at 7 in the NCAA West Regional women’s basketball tournament at the Sports Arena.

UCLA (25-7) meets Colorado State (33-2), 30 minutes after the first game. The winners play Monday for the right to go to the Final Four.

Louisiana Tech reached the national championship game a year ago before losing to Tennessee, and Coach Leon Barmore has said all season this team is stronger and deeper.

UCLA, co-champion of the Pacific 10, brings conference player of the year Maylana Martin to a matchup against a perimeter-minded team that had a 19-game winning streak and put up 759 three-point shots this season.

The matchups:

UCLA vs. Colorado State: The Bruins have size (they go 6 feet 3, 6-4, 6-4 inside with Martin, Janae Hubbard and Carly Funicello), speed and good perimeter shooting. But can they stop Colorado State’s outside shooting?

The Rams shot 36.6% from three-point range this season, with five players shooting better than 34% from beyond the arc. They led the nation in three-pointers made per game, 8.1.

Senior guard Becky Hammon made 42% of her 265 three-point shots.

Also a gifted ballhandler, she’s considered by many a high WNBA draft pick.

But not by one WNBA coach.

When Hammon’s name came up recently, the Detroit Shock’s Nancy Lieberman-Cline said: “Becky Hammon will never play for the Shock. Even if I needed a guard and she was the last guard left, I would not draft Becky Hammon--and you can print that.”

Why?

“She got her coach fired.”

She referred to Greg Williams, now a Detroit assistant coach, who abruptly resigned two years ago. Hammon, according to Lieberman-Cline and a published report at the time, was a leader in a player revolt against Williams.

When asked for a reaction, Hammon responded through a Colorado State spokesman, “Becky feels that doesn’t even warrant a comment,” he said.

If there’s a difference-maker in this one, it could be LaCresha Flannigan, who used to be UCLA’s secret weapon.

The 5-7 guard, only a sophomore, has off-the-chart tools not the least of which is speed. All season on the break, she has been blowing the doors off defenders, zipping by for easy layups.

She has two other assets: “Serious hops,” as Martin describes her leaping ability, and shooting range.

The best rebounding guard in the Pac-10, Flannigan leaps with players half a foot taller. She can grab the rim.

She has three-point shooting range, helpful in games when defenses sag on the Bruins’ inside towers.

Louisiana Tech vs. Louisiana State: Two teams from the same state that haven’t played each other since 1991 have traveled to Los Angeles to do battle.

Sue Gunter, a head coach for 34 years, indicated she’d like her LSU team to put the brakes on Louisiana Tech’s run-and-gun offense tonight.

“If we spend the last 10 minutes of the game looking at the backs of their shirts, that’s big trouble for us,” she said.

“Louisiana Tech is a very formidable opponent, but my team has developed a chemistry greater than any team I’ve ever coached.”

And anyone who has beaten Tennessee has a chance against anyone in this tournament, right?

On Feb. 21, LSU ambushed the Lady Vols in Baton Rouge, 72-69.

“If Tennessee brings their A game, you will not win,” she said. “They didn’t that night, and we were hitting on all cylinders. We had just 11 turnovers.”

LSU, 10-4 in the Southeastern Conference, beat Evansville and Notre Dame to reach Los Angeles.

Louisiana Tech swept the Sun Belt Conference, 12-0. Its only losses were to Tennessee, 92-73, and at Purdue, 71-65.

Barmore, in his 17th season, is 487-73, the best winning percentage (.870) of any active college coach, men or women. He’s 48-15 in the NCAA tournament, and his teams have reached the Final Four eight times.

So he was sand-bagging a bit a week ago, when he said: “You could put together a team from the other 63 teams in the tournament and you still wouldn’t beat Tennessee.”

West Regional Notes

This is UCLA’s third NCAA Sweet 16 appearance. UCLA made it in 1992 and 1985. . . . UCLA’s top recruit, guard Nicole Kaczmarski of New York, will play in the April 3 Phoenix/WBCA High School All-American game at Hartford, Conn., on ESPN2, beginning at 10 a.m. . . . The NCAA’s selection committee must know what it’s doing. The first four seeded teams in each region are in the round of 16. Said UCLA’s Kathy Olivier: “They must be gloating.” Why is the West Regional in Los Angeles? Because in 1995, when it went for bid, USC wanted it, figuring it had a chance to host as well as participate, after a banner 1995 recruiting class that included Adrain Williams and twins Kim and Kristin Clark. But a near-unbelievable string of injuries over the last two seasons depleted the Trojans. . . . Leon Barmore, on an added incentive to win: “I want to be in L.A. for the Academy Awards Sunday.”