AUSTIN, Texas – Things fully unraveled for the LSU women’s basketball team on Thursday when Jada Richard’s frustration bubbled up on baseline inbounds play in the fourth quarter.

Texas was pressing – as it does after every bucket. The Longhorns took away Richard’s first read, then walled off her second. The sophomore guard tried to call a timeout but changed her mind at the last second, flipping a pass toward Flau’jae Johnson instead.

The problem? She was draped in a double-team, unable to collect the pass. So Texas stole it, quickly turning the giveaway into a backbreaking layup that essentially sealed its eventual 77-64 win.

“I think they lost their composure a little bit,” coach Kim Mulkey said.

The No. 5 Tigers (21-3, 7-3 SEC) are still firmly in the mix to earn a top-four NCAA Tournament seed, though, which means they’re still on track to host first-weekend matchups for the fifth year in a row.

They just now face long odds of landing one of the bracket’s four No. 1 seeds – a distinction they could’ve started flirting with had they beaten the No. 4 Longhorns on Thursday.

It’s not fully off the table for LSU. The Tigers still have opportunities to show the NCAA selection committee that they belong to that upper echelon of teams, starting with a Feb. 14 home game against No. 3 South Carolina and ending with the SEC Tournament in March. According to ESPN Analytics, they have a 9% chance of winning at least a share of the SEC regular-season title – a feat that could by itself give them a No. 1 seed.

But to get there, LSU would need to leapfrog either Texas or South Carolina in the standings. It’s not impossible. Just unlikely. The Gamecocks are 9-1 in league play, and the Longhorns are 7-2.

The Tigers are now 7-3 – with a home loss to 5-5 Kentucky.

Mulkey has said she doesn’t care where LSU is seeded, as long as it’s chosen to be one of the 16 teams that host the first two rounds. The Tigers were a No. 3 seed when they won the national championship in 2023.

But that team is one of only eight No. 2 or No. 3 seeds that have taken home the title since the tournament expanded in 1994.

LSU can enter the field as one of those teams this season, but it would likely have to get past either UConn or UCLA to reach the Final Four. The other two No. 1 seeds in this scenario – South Carolina and Texas – would begin on an opposite side of the bracket as LSU. The selection committee tries to avoid putting top-four seeds from the same conference in the same regional.

“This league is just brutal,” Mulkey said. “How are you as a selection committee gonna sit and see these teams in this league? You’ve got people that are gonna get 1-seeds that don’t have to see this night-in and night-out in a conference, do they? It is brutal.

“You have to have a short-term memory. Flush it. Learn from it and get ready for the next ranked opponent. And that’s all the way to the end.”

LSU has only six games left – three against ranked teams and three against unranked teams. Two of the three top-25 matchups are home games for the Tigers: the showdown with South Carolina and a clash with No. 19 Tennessee on Feb. 26.

The other ranked opponent is No. 13 Ole Miss – a 6-3 team with wins over No. 7 Vanderbilt and No. 11 Oklahoma but losses to No. 21 Alabama and unranked Georgia.

LSU won at least 12 league games in each of Mulkey’s first four seasons in charge. It now needs to take at least five of its next six contests to extend that streak to five years – something that’s easier said than done.

The SEC is as tough as it’s ever been.

The Tigers didn’t need that reminder on Thursday, but Texas gave it to them anyway. One frustrating inbounds play at a time.

“We’ve got six left,” Mulkey said. “So see how many of these six that you can win and get ready for the conference tournament.”