Sue Semrau just can't forget the last time Florida State hosted the NCAA women's basketball tournament.
She's tried.
``Still feel sick about that,'' Semrau said.
With good reason. The year was 2004, when four teams got sent to Tallahassee and Semrau's Seminoles weren't one of them. Semrau came to watch those games nonetheless, but on Saturday, Florida State's coach will have a decidedly better view - from her own bench.
Florida State (26-5), the No. 3 seed in the Dayton Regional, hosts 14th-seeded Louisiana Tech (23-8) on Saturday afternoon. Playing at home can be both a blessing and a curse for teams in the women's tournament, a delicate balancing act between having the comforts of home and dealing with burden of knowing you're supposed to win.
The Seminoles say they're embracing the chance.
``This is the granddaddy of them all, the last hurrah for the senior class,'' said 6-foot-5 forward Jacinta Monroe, Florida State's leading scorer and rebounder. ``It's that much more important because of that, but at the same time, we can't add undue pressure to ourselves. We just have to keep a steady head, stay relaxed and play hard.''
The Seminoles haven't played in two weeks, since Monroe turned an ankle in the Atlantic Coast Conference quarterfinals and Boston College quickly ushered Florida State out of that tournament, 67-60. Semrau has taken advantage of the time off - not just to scout and practice, but to hit coffee shops and chicken joints and Mexican restaurants all over town, trying to drum up interest in the tourney.
``As coaches, you wonder what's the right button to push,'' Semrau said. ``We really believe that the most important thing right now for us, that nobody else has, is our home-court advantage. And so, why would we take that away?''
Teresa Weatherspoon is welcoming the challenge.
One of the best women's players ever, a huge part of Louisiana Tech's legacy from her time as a player, is now coaching the Lady Techsters, who know they're big underdogs against the bigger Seminoles.
``If you don't believe that you can win it, well, there's no need to step between the four lines,'' Weatherspoon said. ``You must believe and that's what we've done all year long, regardless of where we are. We've always believed.''
Louisiana Tech got into the tournament by winning the WAC title, and already, Weatherspoon has silenced naysayers who thought the Lady Techsters were done on the national stage.
She thinks they're just getting started. And she doesn't want the credit, either.
``I don't want to take away from my players in any way,'' Weatherspoon said. ``What I've done, I've done. It's said, done and over. I don't even like to say that. But it is. Those days are done for me. My playing days are over. If I could have played 'til I was 90, trust me, I would have.''
The first game in Tallahassee on Saturday is equally intriguing, pitting two schools 65 miles apart who haven't played in 28 years.
St. John's (24-6) meets Princeton (26-2), holders of the third-longest current winning streak in women's basketball, a 21-game stretch that's behind only Connecticut's 72 and Stanford's 22.
And it could be a rusty first few minutes. Princeton will be ending an 11-day layoff, St. John's a 13-day break.
The Tigers have been through worse.
``What I consider disruptive is we played our first Ivy game on Jan. 9, and then we play our next game overall on Jan. 29,'' Princeton coach Courtney Banghart said. ``What I think is pretty disruptive is a 20-day break in the middle of January, where all I do is watch ESPN and see everyone else that gets to play. So a 14-day break for our kids, it's like old news.''
For St. John's, the wait might have seemed particularly arduous, since the Red Storm held a halftime lead before losing 75-67 to Notre Dame in the Big East quarterfinals.
``They have a little bitter taste in the their mouth for the way the Notre Dame game ended, the last four minutes,'' St. John's coach Kim Barnes Arico said. ``So they have something to prove.''
