The LSU Lady Tigers, under the leadership of interim head coach Bob Starkey, have advanced to their fifth straight Sweet Sixteen where they will face #10 seed Florida State on Saturday night in Fresno. LSU easily beat UNC-Asheville 77-39 in the first round, and then knocked off West Virginia 49-43 in a come-from-behind win. Florida State beat Old Dominion in the first round and then upset #2 seed Stanford 68-61 on their home court to advance to their first ever Sweet Sixteen.

Sue Semrau, in her tenth season at the helm of the Seminoles, has done tremendous things in turning around a program that went 0-16 in conference play the year before her arrival. She is the winningest coach in FSU history, and will do just about anything to motivate her team, including camping out in front of Tucker Center for 2 days and nights before their 2006 season home finale in an effort to sell 3,000 tickets for Senior Day. Semrau said it is an unbelievable atmosphere when the football team takes the field in front of a home crowd, and she wanted her players to get a small taste of that. After the defeat of Stanford, Semrau said, "It took a lot of players to come and believe that this could be a good basketball school, and not just a football school.” She is building a winning tradition at FSU, and has seen four Seminole players move on to the WNBA after graduation. It was Semrau’s Seminoles that also broke Duke’s 51 game ACC win streak back in 2004. This year’s squad features one lone senior, Alicia Gladden, who leads the Seminoles in scoring at 14 points per game and is second in rebounding at 6 rebounds per game. Gladden is also the team leader with 63 steals.

LSU is looking to advance to their fourth straight Final Four, but will have to play better than they did in the second round. At times in that game, Starkey looked lost, calling a timeout to stop a West Virginia run, but then the camera caught him just standing there -- not consulting with his assistants nor offering advice to the Lady Tigers until late in the break. It is the tendency for coaches who are taking over to want to put their stamp on the program, but Starkey doesn’t need to mess with a good thing. This team has been here before and they know what to do. To his credit, when LSU fell behind by 11 in their second round game, Starkey told the team to take it one possession at a time and not try to regain the lead all at once. Starkey is currently 2-0 as the interim head coach of the LSU Lady Tigers. They will have to get past a tough team that is building a winning tradition if he hopes to make his record 3-0.

Florida State is very familiar with several of the Lady Tigers. LSU senior center Sylvia Fowles prepped at Miami’s Edison High School, while LSU point guard Erica White and FSU's Shante Williams were high-school teammates at Jacksonville Ribault.

The Lady Tigers hold a 3-2 all-time advantage over Florida State, with LSU winning the most recent meeting 75-68 on Dec. 27, 2003. The other four meetings came between 1989 and 1992.

LSU and Florida State will meet on Saturday night in Fresno at 11:30 PM (EST). The game will be televised on ESPN2.