| In the midst of March Madness, the start of SEC play in baseball, and yes, The Players Championship in golf (sorry, I had to throw that one in), thoughts of college football are never far away. To that end, LSU coach Brian Kelly met with reporters Wednesday on day three of spring practice for the Tigers to talk about a variety of topics, starting with the hiring of new defensive line coach Kyle Williams. The former LSU and NFL great recently replaced another former Tiger, Bo Davis, who left to join Kellen Moore's new staff with the Saints. Our Reed Darcey also gives his take on the look of LSU's transfers during the first media viewing availability of the spring. He also has an update on transfer Josh Thompson and why the Northwestern offensive lineman has yet to join the Tigers. March Madness predictably brought more March misery for the LSU men's basketball team, which was routed 91-62 by Mississippi State on Wednesday night in the first round of the SEC Tournament in Nashville. Despite their 14-18 record the Tigers may still not be done; they could wind up in the NIT come Sunday night. The LSU softball team enters SEC play this weekend against Kentucky off to a blazing 24-1 start, a start marked by the hot hitting of fifth-year senior Danieca Coffey. Our Jim Kleinpeter has a profile. Finally, Reed Darcey is back with an encore: five questions on women's basketball heading into their NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday this weekend: ------------------------------------------------- Here are five questions facing the LSU women before the NCAA Tournament bracket is set Count the LSU women’s basketball team among the select few squads in the country with hopes of winning a national title. But what exactly are the No. 10 Tigers’ chances of reaching the Final Four for the second time under coach Kim Mulkey? The answer to that question will become clearer once the NCAA Tournament bracket is set at 7 p.m. Sunday. The real madness is still more than a week away, with LSU's next possible game coming no earlier than March 21. Here are five questions to consider in the meantime about LSU and its postseason hopes. Where will LSU be seeded? The consensus among bracketologists favors awarding LSU a No. 3 seed and assigning it to one of the regions in Spokane, Washington. The Tigers were ranked No. 7 overall when the NCAA selection committee gave a peek into its top-16 teams on Feb. 26. LSU since has lost three of its last four games, while a few teams that were ranked lower have built win streaks. North Carolina State (No. 8) reached the ACC title game, and TCU (No. 9) and Duke (No. 11) won their respective conference tournaments. Those teams each could jump the Tigers on Selection Sunday, bumping them down to a No. 3 seed — the same spot in which LSU began each of the previous three NCAA tournaments. Will LSU be at full strength? Flau’jae Johnson is battling shin inflammation, and Aneesah Morrow is dealing with a midfoot sprain. Mulkey said on Saturday that both will be ready to play by the start of the NCAA Tournament. But how close to full strength will they be? Johnson told The Advocate on Friday that she’s felt pain in her shin since roughly Feb. 9. Her inflammation wouldn’t have begun to subside, she said, unless she stopped playing in games. So LSU ruled the junior out of its regular-season finale, then shut her down for the SEC Tournament, giving her roughly three weeks to alleviate the pain. The bad news for the Tigers is that Morrow will have less time to manage her injury. The good news is that she dodged something more serious than a foot sprain when she went down in the Southeastern Conference Tournament semifinal against Texas. Mulkey said Morrow even tried to return to that game, but LSU held her out because it has “bigger fish to fry.” Any lessons from SEC Tournament? When the Tigers are at their best, they can both score and defend as well as any team in the country. LSU notched 101 points in a quarterfinal win over Florida. Then it held Texas to only 56 in the semifinals. The problem? The LSU defense allowed the Gators’ 10th-ranked SEC offense to tally 87 points on 48% shooting a day before the Tigers scrounged together only 49 points against the Longhorns. That’s the fewest points they’ve scored in a single game under Mulkey. Johnson will soon return to the court, giving LSU a boost at both ends of the floor. But the Tigers likely will have trouble reaching the Final Four unless they can marry their best offensive and defensive efforts against the teams they’ll encounter in the NCAA Tournament. Is LSU settled at point guard? Not really. Shayeann Day-Wilson and Last-Tear Poa have split those duties for the last seven games or so, and Mulkey has indicated that she’ll let the matchup dictate which ballhandler will play more minutes. Day-Wilson earned more run against Kentucky on Feb. 23, for example, because LSU wanted her to defend point guard Georgia Amoore. That plan worked: Amoore scored only four points on 2-of-9 shooting in the second half, which helped the Tigers erase a double-digit steal and steal a win on the road. LSU thinks games against teams such as Texas are better matchups for Poa. In the two games against the Longhorns, she played more than twice as many minutes as Day-Wilson did because the Tigers needed someone to help them evade full-court pressure — a job tailored more to Poa’s game. Mulkey likely will take the same approach in the tournament. She may even carve out more minutes for Mjracle Sheppard, who averaged 10 points and 2.5 steals per game in the SEC Tournament while starting in place of Johnson. Long road trip ahead? It sure looks like it. Remember, the women’s tournament has two regional sites, not four. Those cities are Spokane, Washington, and Birmingham, Alabama, this year. Birmingham really has room for only two top teams from the SEC: South Carolina and Texas. LSU could’ve earned one of those spots, but it lost too many games down the stretch of the regular season. Now the Tigers likely will have to settle for a long flight to the Pacific Northwest. That's assuming, of course, they can advance past the first two rounds of the tournament. Those games will take place inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. ------------------------------------------------- That's all for today, folks. Thanks for reading and subscribing and we'll catch you next time. Scott Rabalais | 