BATON ROUGE, La. -- With new starters at every position, the first challenge for the LSU Lady Tigers will be to justify their No. 24 preseason ranking -- never mind prolonging the program's current streak of five straight Final Four appearances.
Last year's team was loaded with seniors like Sylvia Fowles, Quianna Chaney and Erica White, now all current WNBA players who went their whole college careers without ending a season short of a national semifinal. They never won an NCAA championship, however.
If LSU is to climb those final couple steps to the zenith of women's college basketball anytime soon, it will have to be with a new group of players head coach Van Chancellor rounded up during the whirlwind recruiting trips he's made since taking over the program in the spring of 2007.
"It is very easy to recruit players to LSU," Chancellor said. "We have seven freshmen and a junior college player. I am very excited. Our players are very talented and they work hard."
Chancellor knows he has talent, but in the Southeastern Conference, which includes two-time defending champion Tennessee, inexperience can be costly.
"Being young in the SEC, it is very hard to get confidence and keep it," Chancellor said. "We are going to start two freshmen at least, maybe three. Anybody else we start besides Allison Hightower has never played a meaningful minute in the SEC."
Hightower, now a junior, was the only underclassman last season who was able to establish a regular spot in LSU's rotation and even started twice. She never hesitated to take big shots. Her problem was making them consistently. She averaged 7.1 points per game, but may need to score with more consistency this season for the Lady Tigers to compete.
"I've learned a lot since last year," Hightower said. "I looked up to all of those girls from last year and tried to follow in their footsteps. This has been a great experience playing with them. Coach Chancellor has really stressed leadership to me. We have one senior and it's important for me to step up and try to lead this team vocally."
The lone senior is Kristen Morris, a 6-foot-2 power forward who played behind Fowles. The only other junior is guard Andrea Kelly, a transfer from Okaloosa-Walton Community College.
While much of the roster is now made up of freshmen, three of them were recognized as McDonald's All-Americans last spring: 5-10 freshman guard Destini Hughes, 6-3 center Ayana Dunning and 6-2 forward LaSondra Barrett.
In large part because of those three players, LSU's latest recruiting class was widely considered among the best in the nation. They should learn a lot from Chancellor, who at 65 years old is a women's basketball coaching icon with four WNBA championships and an Olympic gold (Athens 2004) to his name.
When it comes to winning, however, Chancellor has done better with more mature players. He never reached a Final Four in two decades coaching at Ole Miss, but his pro and international teams were dominant. His first Final Four came last season, when he had nine returning seniors, including all five starters.
It would be only natural to wonder if a team full of freshman might test the old coach's patience, but Chancellor contends that he's been rejuvenated by the injection of youth into LSU's program.
"As you grow older as a coach, being around a young team just energizes you. It makes you feel young. You think young," Chancellor said. "You get up every day excited to be a part of your team. This year, our practices have a lot of spontaneity to them. The greatest thing is coaching a team that absorbs everything you are teaching. When you get that type of team, it is a lot of fun to coach. Every player is trying to learn and work."
How fast they learn remains to be seen.