In February 2023, undefeated LSU went to South Carolina to take on the defending champions near the midpoint of the SEC season. Despite their 23 wins by an average of 32.4 points, there was a healthy dose of skepticism regarding the Tigers, who had been mostly untested against a light nonconference slate. Before Selection Sunday, LSU’s nonconference strength of schedule ranked 320th in the country.

Those doubters had their day, as the Tigers lost by 24 points to the Gamecocks in their first meeting. But LSU had the last word when it won the national championship two months later.

Fast forward two seasons, and the Tigers’ resume bears a strong similarity to the 2023 champs. They are once again unbeaten through 20 games, winning by an average of 28.4 points. The offense and defense rank fourth and 11th nationally, compared with fifth on both ends in 2023. They have the 212th-ranked nonconference strength of schedule. Heading into a showdown with defending champion South Carolina, LSU is familiarly not regarded as a top contender for the national title.

Unsurprisingly, coach Kim Mulkey doesn’t have a problem with how her team — or her scheduling methods — is perceived.

“People love to get honest about our nonconference schedule, and everybody has a right to an opinion,” Mulkey said on a radio show in December. “But I’ve been doing this 40 years. The NET rankings came out this week, we’re eighth in the country, and that’s the quote-unquote thing the committee looks at.”

That confidence is well founded. LSU has a big three in Flau’jae Johnson, Aneesah Morrow and Mikaylah Williams that rivals any trio in the country, as it is the only team with three players averaging at least 16.5 points per game. The Tigers have the best offensive rebounding rate in the country, and second-best overall, with Morrow leading the nation in rebounds (14.2 per game). They also draw the third-most fouls of any team.

Even as the roster has skewed smaller, with 5-foot-10 Johnson and 6-foot Williams often filling the forward spots, the physicality and rim pressure of the Tigers don’t waver.

They’re also well tested in clutch time, even if they didn’t expect to be in so many close games. LSU came back from down 7 with 2:38 to play against Washington and down 6 with 40 seconds left against Stanford while gutting out back-and-forth fourth quarters against Tennessee and Vanderbilt. The Tigers’ NET rating in clutch situations is plus-49.5 points per 100 possessions. Though other teams can look out of sorts and make questionable decisions in tight games — think of TCU and Duke fouling down 3 in conference play when they would have gotten the ball back anyway — LSU consistently executes.

“We really come together in those moments when the spotlight is big or we (are) in a tight game,” Johnson said after beating the Commodores. “We just know how to come together and we really kind of learned (from) each other.”

This is an experienced bunch. Unlike in 2023 when most of the key players were in their first year at LSU, the big three all have at least one season in Mulkey’s system. Sa’Myah Smith and Last-Tear Poa were with Johnson on the national title team. As they bring along the likes of Shayeann Day-Wilson, Kailyn Gilbert, Mjracle Sheppard and Jersey Wolfenbarger, significant institutional knowledge is already in place.

The usual caveats about Mulkey’s teams apply. The Tigers don’t take many 3-pointers. They rely heavily on isolation offense, and they turn over the ball too frequently, which has been exacerbated by a cadre of transfers stepping in at point guard.

All of these problems are part of the LSU experience, however. It was 350th in 3-point rate in 2023 when Jasmine Carson’s explosion from long range decided the national title game. Its high volume of turnovers is a function of its fast pace, and the assist rate doesn’t matter as much when Johnson, Morrow or Williams can beat her defender one-on-one.

With their history of success, the Tigers don’t feel the need to apologize for how they’ve arrived at their record. They’re also scheduling in a different environment than in past years. The SEC wasn’t deep enough in recent history to make up for a weak early slate. When the 2023 NCAA Tournament tipped off, two SEC teams were ranked. Seven squads are in the Top 25 this week, with three others receiving votes. Softening up the schedule in November and December is self-preservation for 18 brutal league games in January and February.

“In the nonconference, they got a lot of rest,” Mulkey said this week. “I think they got enough rest.”

South Carolina headlines the rest of the schedule, but the grind continues with five more ranked teams, including Mulkey’s former Big 12 friends Texas and Oklahoma, plus Mississippi State and Ole Miss. Heading into March, there won’t be any more uncertainty about LSU. If the Tigers couldn’t show what they were capable of in the first two months of the season, the opportunities will come aplenty in SEC play.

The goal is to come through unscathed. “Not being able to give our all in a game and fall short, that’s not what we want to do,” Morrow said. “We don’t want to lose any games.”

A loss to South Carolina isn’t an indictment of the process, just as it wasn’t in 2023. High-profile matchups against Colorado and Virginia Tech last season didn’t help LSU get any further in the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Building up throughout the regular season — even if early games are noncompetitive — works for this program.

These Tigers have their own way of preparing themselves for the tournament, and their performance in March is the only standard they can be judged on.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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