At long last, Women’s March Madness is here. Division I women’s basketball has been whittled down to the 68 teams still alive in the quest for a national title.
LSU, the 2023 national champion, is one of the favorites to win the tournament, with the fifth-shortest odds (+1600) to ultimately cut down the nets. It’ll open its potential run this afternoon with a 6 p.m. ET matchup against No. 15 Jacksonville.
The Tigers are 51.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook, with the point total set to 162.5. Below, I’ll break down this first-round matchup and offer a prediction.
Jacksonville Dolphins at LSU Tigers (6:00 p.m. ET)
To be fair, Jacksonville enters this afternoon’s matchup in very hot form, having won 13 of its final 14 games of the season, including a run through the Atlantic Sun conference title. The Dolphins mostly had a pretty easy run of the tournament, posting nine-point wins over West Georgia and Central Arkansas before sneaking past Austin Peay in overtime, and though they lost badly the one time they faced a ranked opponent, they did pick up a Quad 2 win and a Quad 3 win. Playing in Baton Rouge will obviously be a tough test, but Jacksonville did manage to finish with a winning record away from home.
The Dolphins are a one-woman show; senior guard Priscilla Williams leads the team in points (15.4), rebounds (8.6), assists (2.4), and blocks (1.3), though she hasn’t been particularly efficient, posting just 39-28-78 shooting splits. The only other player averaging more than 10 points per game is freshman guard Tatum Brown, who also leads the team with 2.3 steals per game. In general, Jacksonville lacks shooting, canning triples at less than a 30% clip, so Brown, the team’s best volume shooter, needs to carry the load. The Dolphins are also a below-average rebounding team.
LSU will definitely be a challenge. The Tigers weren’t perfect this season, losing five teams, but all were to teams ranked 16th or higher by NET ratings (by comparison, Jacksonville finished 137th). They finished the season fairly strong, throttling No. 7 Oklahoma in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals before ultimately losing to South Carolina, the only team to beat them twice. LSU’s offense is high-powered; it scored at least 100 points in each of its first eight games of the season and 14 times overall, including in a 115-26 demolition of Southeastern Louisiana.
MiLaysia Fulwiley, Johnson, and Mikaylah Williams combine to form a three-headed monster. Fulwiley, a junior guard, ultimately led the team in scoring (14.6), assists (3.7), steals (3.0), and blocks (1.7) despite only starting one game, and Amiya Joyner led the team in rebounds (7.4). Unlike the Dolphins, the Tigers have plenty of shooting; Johnson, Williams, and Jada Richards all have made at least 40% of their triples. All in all, LSU ranks third in the nation in three-point percentage and leads the nation in rebound margin, which makes it an extremely difficult matchup for Jacksonville.
As long as the Tigers stay disciplined, they should win easily. The Dolphins have been the best team in the country at drawing contact, going to the line 25.8 times per night and knocking down their free throws at a 72.6% clip, but LSU (23.6 free-throw attempts per night) is not far behind. The Tigers do foul fairly frequently, but not as frequently as Jacksonville does, and with that typical advantage for the Dolphins mitigated, LSU’s elite defense (a top-five mark in opponent field goal percentage) should be enough for a cover. The Tigers are beatable by teams that can shoot threes — they rank just 88th in three-point percentage defense — but Jacksonville just isn’t that.
