Entertainment and sports have long been synonymous. Think of the Harlem Globetrotters. Think of the original words behind the name “ESPN” – the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.

Think, this season, of LSU women’s basketball.

Tigers Jada Richard and ZaKiyah Johnson were asked to describe their team’s brand Saturday.

Both had the same answer:

“The show.”

Friday night against Jacksonville, LSU put on an award-winner in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. The Tigers doubled up the overmatched Dolphins 116-58, setting program records for points, margin of victory and steals (18) in an NCAA Tournament game, and tying the NCAA Division I mark set by Long Beach State in 1987 with their 15th 100-point game this season.

More than just scoring, with LSU, it’s the passing, the quick hands, the attitude that walking the ball up court is like doing some sort of penance until they can hit the throttle again.

“We’re going to give y’all a show,” Richard said. “Whether that’s behind-the-back passes, celebrations. We just play with a lot of passion. I think from the top of our roster to the bottom, we just love basketball.

“I feel like there’s a lot of people who play basketball, but they don’t like it. I feel like we all love the game. We love coming to practice every day, pushing each other. We love the grind. I think that’s what LSU basketball is. We have that grit, that passion, so that’s why we’re ‘the show.’ ”

“The show must go on,” as the saying goes, and for LSU, it likely will. The Tigers (28-5), the No. 2-seeded team in the NCAA Sacramento 2 regional, are just shy of a 25-point favorite going into Sunday’s second-round game against No. 7 Texas Tech (2 p.m., ABC).

But win or lose, this will be LSU’s final game this season at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. If the show goes on, it will be a road show, out in California, in the Sweet 16.

LSU coach Kim Mulkey said senior Flau’jae Johnson, playing her last game in the PMAC as a Tiger, deserves to have a sellout crowd Sunday.

That goes for the entire team. For the entire cast of “The Show.” If the Savannah Bananas could sell out the Caesars Superdome last weekend for whatever it is they do — twice — then LSU fans can turn out in droves to watch this team play on its home court one more time. Yes, NCAA rules guaranteeing the visiting teams and bands seats in the lower bowl (plus losing seats to courtside press rows, I must admit) have scrambled the PMAC’s seating arrangement for LSU’s loyal legions.

Hopefully, for the Tigers’ sake, and for Texas Tech, which is striving to recapture its program’s former glory, they will come nonetheless.

“If you build it, they will come.” That was the famous line from the movie “Field of Dreams.” Mulkey has done that at LSU. Building not only a winning program but one that produces “Did you see that?” moments game after game.

That wasn’t her objective when she left Baylor for LSU five years ago. It was, of course, to win and win big. But the entertaining part has been a compelling by-product of the talent and the coaching LSU has had, a combination that has the Tigers aiming for the program’s 17th Sweet 16 appearance and fourth straight under Mulkey.

“I don’t sit down and say this is what we have to do to be entertaining or sit down and say this is what we do because we’re ‘the show,’ ” Mulkey said. “I just allow players to have a little freedom offensively. That’s what I liked when I played. Let’s get up and down the floor.

“I’ve got a lot of athletes, man. Let’s go. Who wants to walk it up the floor and wait for a post player to come down there and post up?”

LSU-Texas Tech is about as big a contrast in styles as you could find in the NCAA’s round of 32. The Tigers are on pace to break the Southeastern Conference scoring record, now averaging 95.1 points per game. They play defense, yes, the disruptive kind, but defense isn’t this team’s identity.

It is for Texas Tech. The Raiders average 71.5 points per game but allow just 57.9, trying to full-court press their opponents into submission. They wore down Villanova in the first round, 57-52, fewer points combined than LSU scored on its own Friday.

That approach has worked to get Texas Tech this far and win 26 games. But Tech coach Krista Gerlich, who played on the Lady Raiders’ 1993 national championship team, knows this is a tough assignment.

“We’re going to continue to do what we do and try to disrupt as much as possible,” Gerlich said. “But obviously, they’re a really good basketball team for a reason. It will be difficult for us to disrupt them that much.”

In other words, the Lady Raiders will try to be show stoppers.

Everyone’s a critic, but that’s going to be a tough assignment.