Klapp Presents - "Jabari"
Klapp Presents: Inside The Mind of Klapp
By Klapp Washington
Apr 6, 2006, 05:16 EST

Tourney run goes a long way

!st round draft pick and 3-time "Player of the Year" - Seimone Augustus

Well, it’s all over now.  March Madness is no more.  Now is the time for fans worldwide to sit back and wonder....what if.  Being from the bayou, I can’t help but to think about the “what if’s” when it comes to my beloved Bayou Bengals. 

For the first time in school history, the men’s and women’s basketball program reached the Final Four in the same year.  Not only did both teams make it that far, but both teams were certainly capable of walking away with a championship, making them the only school to do so since Connecticut’s successful run at a dual championship at the turn of the millennium.

With the likes of Glen “Big Baby” Davis and Tyrus Thomas on the men’s side and Seimone Augustus and Stephenson High School’s own, Ashley Thomas on the women’s side, Tigers’ fans worldwide were itching.   We were able to scratch that “championship” itch in 2003, being co-national champions in football.  But this....this would have been far greater.  Men and women dominating their respective sport, yet the same sport. 

But there was another itch.  An uncomfortable itch. 

Big Baby did big things in helping the Tigers get to the Final Four.

Before there were dreams of a dual national championship, there were nightmares of levees breaching and looting breaking out.  Contaminated flood waters and lack of food and water.  Not knowing if your family and friends were o.k. or if you’d end up seeing them on a rooftop somewhere plastered on the news. 

Before the Pete Maravich Assembly Center was the home of two national contending teams, it was home to evacuees.  Basketball players became medical assistants.  The perfect assist was coming to the aid of a suffering diabetic, who is without insulin.  Instead of basketballs, boxes and supplies were passed back and forth.  These Tigers were working hard, but this was no practice, no drill.  This was real life.

And with the entire state of Louisiana on their backs, and thousands of others who dispersed throughout the country, these two teams bulldozed their way through the NCAA Tournament.  Unfortunately, the ride ended one stop too early.  But the Tigers’ were able to satisfy that itch.  No, not that “championship” itch.  These Tigers satisfied that uncomfortable itch.  That itch that no one could seem to reach. 

That itch that just no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t get to it. 

So congrats to the Florida Gators and the Maryland Lady Terps, but even bigger congrats to the LSU Tigers and Lady Tigers.  Thanks for satisfying that itch.

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