| I think I'll head back to Nashville And get a new start — Bobby Cordell Jordan Wright got his new start playing basketball at LSU after four years at Vanderbilt. Now the Baton Rouge native is heading back to Nashville, hoping to lead the Tigers to a big SEC Tournament victory Thursday (noon, SEC Network) over Mississippi State. The Tigers need a win to enhance their promising but still tenuous NIT hopes. The Bulldogs need a win to try to move off the NCAA Tournament bubble, where ESPN's Joe Lunardi says they rest as one of the last four teams with byes in the field of 68. Look, the mere fact we're talking about LSU needing any win to enhance any postseason tournament hopes is good news for Matt McMahon's second-year regime. What isn't good news is the Tigers open the tourney against the very State team that smoked them by 20 points in the PMAC last they met. At the very least, it's impactful games like this that make conference tournaments fun. Our Sheldon Mickles will be putting together words in Nashville in a journalistically rewarding way. Before he left for Music City he left us his five things to watch in the SEC Tournament. The LSU baseball team, which plays more day games than the Chicago Cubs these days, had another afternoon start under coach Jay "Matinee Idol" Johnson. It was a familiar refrain: pitching was dominant, hitting was adequate at best, and LSU got the win, 7-0, to improve to 16-2 overall. Straight ahead: an SEC opening trip to ancient rival Mississippi State this weekend. We're still a ways away from Selection Sunday, but the LSU women's basketball program and even its former players continue to make news. Former guard Kateri Poole, who has been off the team since December for still officially unknown reasons, has entered the transfer portal. LSU certainly could have used Poole in the SEC Tournament this past weekend after the frightening concussion suffered by Last-Tear Poa in Saturday's semifinal against Ole Miss. LSU coach Kim Mulkey related a touching story on her weekly radio show about Poa's uncomfortable flight home from Greenville, South Carolina, and the care the LSU staff and her teammates tried to show for her. In case you're wondering, there's still no word when Poa will be able to return to the court. LSU will open NCAA play in the PMAC either March 22 or 23. Some insightful local sports pundit (it's me) is back with the last snapshot of LSU's NCAA Tournament prospects right here. Finally, Mulkey took a swipe at media over the extensive news coverage of the scuffle near the end of Sunday's SEC Tournament final between LSU and South Carolina. In Mulkey's view, it was sexist and wouldn't be getting so much coverage if it was men's basketball. Let's just agree to disagree about that one, coach. The incident was in fact the definition of newsworthy: "interesting enough to the general public to warrant reporting." Until next time, Scott Rabalais | 