{"id":192994,"date":"2026-03-16T02:36:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T02:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/192994\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T02:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T02:36:20","slug":"kim-mulkey-and-lsu-wbb-slated-as-no-2-seed-will-face-jacksonville-in-first-round-of-ncaa-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/192994\/","title":{"rendered":"Kim Mulkey And LSU WBB Slated As No. 2 Seed, Will Face Jacksonville In First Round Of NCAA Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/LSUWbkbVOklahoma030626_KimMulkey2_LSUAthletics.jpg\" alt=\"Kim Mulkey, LSU\" title=\"LSUWbkbVOklahoma030626_KimMulkey2_LSUAthletics\"\/><\/p>\n<p>By ANDRE CHAMPAGNE, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter <\/p>\n<p>The LSU women\u2019s basketball team has earned its best seed of the Kim Mulkey era, landing a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers will host fifteenth-seeded Jacksonville on Friday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center at a time to be announced.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LSU?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#LSU<\/a> will take on fifteenth-seeded Jacksonville of the Atlantic Sun Conference in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday at a time to be announced. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IjABhP9n5j\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/IjABhP9n5j<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Andre Champagne (@andrechampagnee) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/andrechampagnee\/status\/2033339601457234264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March 16, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Head coach Kim Mulkey said Selection Sunday is always special because it serves as a reminder of everything her team has accomplished throughout the long season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll always be excited as long as I have a breath to cheer, pump my fist and do things because I just don\u2019t take it for granted,\u201d Mulkey said on Sunday. \u201cAnd it\u2019s work. It\u2019s work to maintain something and it\u2019s work to build something. And just don\u2019t let people forget how hard it is. It is hard and it is darn hard to win championships.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>First and second round games in Baton Rouge this weekend will be on Friday and Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>LSU (27-5, 12-4 Southeastern Conference) will host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament for the fifth consecutive year. The four teams in the Baton Rouge regional are second-seeded LSU, fifteenth-seeded Jacksonville (24-8, 13-5 Atlantic Sun Conference), seventh-seeded Texas Tech (25-7, 12-6 Big 12 Conference) and tenth-seeded Villanova (25-7, 16-4 Big East Conference).<\/p>\n<p>Mulkey shared her initial reactions to the draw and the teams coming to Baton Rouge for the first and second rounds this weekend. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody\u2019s good,\u201d Mulkey sad. \u201cVillanova will like it here with all the Catholics we have in Louisiana, right? I\u2019m familiar with obviously Krista (Gerlich), the coach at Texas Tech. She was a great player there. If y\u2019all remember, she played with Cheryl Swoops and won a national championship for Marsha Sharp. And don\u2019t know the coach at Villanova and don\u2019t know Jacksonville, so for the three that are coming here, that\u2019s as much as I know tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Mulkey is confident that by Monday morning, she\u2019ll be much more familiar with all of them after associate head coach Bob Starkey does some late-night scouting on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why Coach Bob is across the street. He\u2019ll have all that ready for us tomorrow,\u201d Mulkey said.<\/p>\n<p>Should LSU advance out of the first two rounds, it would travel to Sacramento, where it is paired with No. 1 seed UCLA (31-1, 18-0 Big 10 Conference). <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the third straight year that LSU will travel far from Baton Rouge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do hate it for LSU fans because it would be so convenient to go to Fort Worth,\u201d Mulkey said. <\/p>\n<p>Even though that\u2019s still a ways away, Mulkey said her primary focus is preparing her team to win the first two games of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been on the floor since Wednesday, but it\u2019ll be good to be back on the floor and know who we\u2019re prepping for,\u201d Mulkey said. \u201cThe unknown is not just preparing for Jacksonville, but you\u2019ve got to do your homework on the other two because should you win, you don\u2019t know who you\u2019re going to play. So we\u2019ll be prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other notable teams in Region 2 of the Sacramento Region include third-seeded Duke (24-8, 16-2 Atlantic Coast Conference), fourth-seeded Minnesota (22-8, 13-5 Big 10 Conference), fifth-seeded Ole Miss (23-11, 8-8 SEC) and sixth-seeded Baylor (24-8, 13-5 Big 12).<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kim Mulkey\u2019s reaction to Duke being revealed as the No. 3 seed in their regional. <\/p>\n<p>The Tigers beat the Blue Devils 93-77 early in December. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LSU?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#LSU<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/LLXlSx93em\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/LLXlSx93em<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Andre Champagne (@andrechampagnee) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/andrechampagnee\/status\/2033340244536316058?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March 16, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>It marks the third straight season LSU and UCLA have been placed in the same regional of the bracket. The Tigers defeated the Bruins in 2024 before UCLA evened the postseason series last season with an Elite Eight win.<\/p>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By ANDRE CHAMPAGNE, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter The LSU women\u2019s basketball team has earned its best seed of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117,53899,89855,33737,89856,11474,22622],"class_list":["post-192994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-kim-mulkey","tag-lsu-womens-basketball","tag-march-madness","tag-ncaa-selection-show","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-ucla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}