Lsu

The LSU basketball team is going back to Louisiana - but to the campus in Baton Rouge, not the Final Four in New Orleans. The Tigers yesterday lost a chance for a triumphal return to their home state when Indiana's Rick Calloway deposited an air ball by Daryl Thomas with 7 seconds left, giving the Hoosiers a 77-76 victory in the Midwest Regional final at the Riverfront Coliseum. Louisiana State, the region's No. 10 seed, had knocked off Georgia Tech, Temple and DePaul in a strong bid to reach the Final Four for the second straight season.

NEW ORLEANS - Morris Claiborne went to Louisiana State to play wide receiver. Tyrann Mathieu just wanted a chance to play. Together they form one of the best cornerback tandems in college football. Claiborne has flourished into a Thorpe Award winner and likely top-10 NFL draft pick after moving to the other side of the ball, while the pint-size Mathieu has emerged as one of the game's most dynamic playmakers, winning the Bednarik Award and earning an invitation to the Heisman ceremony.

Ben Voogd showed up at Louisiana State as a freshman guard from the West Coast and almost immediately was transported to another world. In a heartbeat, Voogd goes back to the first days in Baton Rouge after Hurricane Katrina in August. As he left his apartment, the first sight was the helicopters. He still can picture them landing on LSU's track. He can see stretchers being wheeled in - "rushed in, as fast as they could," he said - to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, which had been turned into a triage center.

ATLANTA - Tyrann Mathieu returned a punt 62 yards for a touchdown and set up two other scores with a fumble recovery and another dazzling return to lead No. 1 Louisiana State to a 42-10 rout of No. 12 Georgia in Saturday's Southeastern Conference championship game. LSU (13-0) advanced to a spot in the BCS title game in New Orleans, just 75 miles from its Baton Rouge campus. The Tigers' opponent will be announced Sunday night, but SEC West rival and No. 2 Alabama - already beaten by the Tigers, 9-6, in overtime a month ago - had the inside track.

LSU received a police escort to the door of its hotel in the party city of New Orleans, and coach Nick Saban quickly laid out a road map to success at the Sugar Bowl: staying out of trouble. As with No. 3 Oklahoma, which arrived Saturday, off-field concerns were on the minds of LSU coaches and players heading into the Jan. 4 game. "We've been to some bowl games before and I think most of the players on our team understand what it takes to focus on a bowl game, that there are a lot of distractions," Saban said yesterday.

LSU SOPHOMORE Andrew Del Piero will go from playing his tuba at basketball games to playing for the Tigers if LSU coach Trent Johnson has his way. Johnson snagged the 7-2, 286-pound brass player from the band, and convinced him to play basketball this season. Del Piero, who will join LSU as a walk-on, said he hasn't played organized basketball since he was a freshman in high school. "Everyone always told me I should play," Del Piero told the Daily Reveille, the university's student newspaper.

Stromile Swift provided the scoring for LSU, but even Swift credited the Tigers' defense for their win over Kentucky. Swift had 26 points and LSU's defense harassed No. 11 Kentucky into 23 turnovers in the No. 25 Tigers' 70-57 win yesterday. "We feel like we can beat anybody when we're playing the kind of defense we played today," Swift said. "If we just stay with our game and play really good defense, we can keep this thing going against anybody. " That combination was certainly effective against Kentucky, as the host Tigers had 17 steals.

LSU has suspended star cornerback Tyrann Mathieu, along with defensive back Tharold Simon and running back Spencer Ware, for Saturday's home game against Auburn, according to a person familiar with the decision. The person spoke about the suspensions on condition of anonymity on Wednesday because they have not been announced. LSU coach Les Miles declined to confirm any punishment for members of his No. 1 Tigers after Wednesday's practice. "I understand the interest which surrounds what seems to be news.

Tyrann Mathieu returned a punt 92 yards for a score, Louisiana State punished third-ranked Arkansas with 286 yards rushing, and the top-ranked Tigers secured a spot in the SEC championship game with a 41-17 victory Friday in Baton Rouge, La. Kenny Hilliard, Spencer Ware, and Jordan Jefferson all scored on the ground for LSU (12-0, 8-0 SEC), which is 12-0 for the first time and will play No. 13 Georgia next weekend in Atlanta. A win over the Bulldogs would assure the Tigers their third trip to the BCS title game in nine seasons.

If "Super Tuesday" gave a boost to George Bush's presidential candidacy, then "Suspenseful Sunday," the day NCAA Tournament bids were extended, had to be especially helpful to Louisiana State and Arizona. For different reasons, CBS college basketball analyst Billy Packer, whose network will televise the Final Four from Kansas City April 2 and 4, saw upstart LSU and second-ranked Arizona as the prime beneficiaries of the NCAA Tournament selection committee's handiwork yesterday - the Tigers because they got into the 64-team field with a 16-13 record, the Wildcats because they seemingly have the easiest path to the Final Four of the four regional No. 1 seeds.