Winning advice

• By SHELDON MICKLES
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Apr 3, 2008 - Page: 1C - UPDATED: 12:25 a.m.

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As they wrapped up their one and only practice at home before Sunday night’s Final Four matchup against Tennessee, the LSU women’s basketball team got a surprise visit from someone who knows about winning a national championship.

LSU football coach Les Miles, who guided the Tigers to the BCS national championship in January, watched the final minutes of practice and then addressed the team at the request of Lady Tigers coach Van Chancellor.

LSU leaves today for Tampa, Fla., and the school’s fifth straight appearance in the Women’s Final Four, and Chancellor said he thought it would be a good idea to get a sendoff from Miles.

“(The football team) had similarities with some of the things we went through and are going through, so (associate head coach) Bob (Starkey) and I talked about it,” Chancellor said after practice. “At first, we were going to get (Glenn) Dorsey and one of the players, but then we began to think that about how coach Miles would say it.”

Chancellor said Miles spoke to the Lady Tigers, who will take on Tennessee at about 8:30 p.m. CDT Sunday in the St. Pete Forum, in the locker room for “10 to 15 minutes.”

“He talked about what they went through and was talking about being able to stay focused and work hard and keep the peripheral stuff out of the way,” Chancellor said. “That was one of the challenges they had, especially being in New Orleans. He talked about playing in big games and being prepared.”

Chancellor smiled when relating the story of how Miles, who is married to a former Michigan women’s assistant basketball coach, told the players how much he watches them play.

“He said, ‘I don’t have a choice, I watch you play all the time,’” Chancellor said with a laugh. “‘Ya’ll don’t know how much I do watch ya’ll play, so I know about you.’ He was bragging on Erica (White) for holding her cool and not getting thrown out of the (Oklahoma State) game after the kid (Andrea Riley) slapped her.

“They were kind of shocked, but I thought he had their undivided attention,” he said. “At this time of the year, it’s awfully hard to get a player’s attention for two minutes — let alone 10 or 15.”

“Coach Miles was just telling us to prepare,” senior guard RaShonta LeBlanc said. “He told us to prepare and come to practice and do what we need to do to play Sunday because preparing is the most important part.”

Chancellor then chuckled when he thought about something else Miles told the Lady Tigers. Miles told them he didn’t know how they had practiced Wednesday, but he couldn’t get his team to practice because they were anticipating the trip to New Orleans.

Ironically, the same thing happened to Chancellor.

“I’m going to be frank with you,” he told reporters. “Here’s what I thought about (Wednesday’s) practice: It was eight seniors ready to get on a plane to go to Tampa. That’s the coach’s opinion today.