At the end of last season’s Final Four, the LSU Tigers roared.

And with Angel Reese, the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament for the reigning national champions, back in the fold in Baton Rouge for 2023-24, don’t be shocked if LSU is playing for all the marbles down the stretch once again in six months.

After transferring into the revitalized LSU program for the 2022-23 season, Reese embarked on a historic campaign that saw her profile and stature across American sports skyrocket thanks to stellar play and plenty of swagger. Likely to be a first-round pick in what should be a stacked 2024 WNBA Draft class next spring, the Baltimore native has her fourth season of college hoops ahead of her with a chance to strengthen her already illustrious legacy at LSU.

There are some new faces in the Tigers’ program, however, and with significant contributors from the national title run like WNBA Draft picks Alexis Morris and Ladazhia Williams now out of the picture, LSU will have to adjust and gel quickly in order to fend off the many rivals that are breathing down its neck.

But Reese and Co. have plenty left in the tank while the team reloaded in the transfer portal, making it clear that there’s one goal in Baton Rouge this season — be the last team left standing on April 7 in Cleveland.

Can Reese and the rest of the Tigers be the first women’s college basketball program to capture consecutive national championships in eight years? Considering how much LSU brings to the table to take a crack at that feat, it’s hard to go against it:

Angel’s World

In one of the most obvious preseason takes you’ll read ahead of the 2023-24 women’s college basketball season, Angel Reese will be a major part of what LSU does this year. But it can’t be overstated just how massive her leap from 2021-22 to 2022-23 was following her transfer in that time from Maryland to LSU. 

Having already been well-established as a talented player with the Terrapins as she averaged a double-double during her sophomore season (17.8 points, 10.6 rebounds per game), Reese was an All-Big Ten First Team selection and Associated Press Third Team All-American as Maryland made the Sweet 16. By that point, Reese was well known to most women’s college hoops fans but fairly unknown to many casual watchers, but that completely changed after one season in Baton Rouge. 

Saved the best for last ?

The LSU Tigers are National Champions! pic.twitter.com/nY6bjVCD4Q

— LSU Women's Basketball (@LSUwbkb) April 4, 2023

Reese during her junior campaign had one of the greatest individual seasons by a college basketball player ever, regardless of man or woman, when she averaged a massive 23.0 points and 15.4 boards per game as a tenacious inside presence under Kim Mulkey, the former national title-winning Baylor coach who transformed the Tigers’ program essentially overnight after arriving prior to the 2021-22 season. Smashing the NCAA’s single-season record for double-doubles, the grand finale of Reese’s whirlwind season — LSU’s victory over Iowa in the national title game — saw her prowess be shown on a national stage to record viewership, launching her to superstardom. 

Now the second most-valuable women’s college athlete (and seventh most-valuable overall) in On3’s NIL 100 rankings, Reese’s name makes waves across college sports, and with her firmly in the spotlight now, more eyes are on her for the 2023-24 season than ever before. Following up on all she achieved a year ago is a massive undertaking, but arguably no one in college basketball is better equipped to shoulder the load than Reese.

Lethal New Additions

Reese and LSU’s run to the national championship wasn’t done without a supporting cast, of course. However, the scary part for the rest of the country is that this season’s roster may arguably be even more talented than 2022-23’s was. 

Incredibly, of the five players projected by many to be the Tigers’ starters, four have won some sort of major conference award (a first-team nod and/or an individual player award, such as Freshman of the Year), while the final remaining one was the consensus No. 1 recruit in America for the class of 2023. 

Yeah, it’s safe to say that LSU is going to be loaded again. 

You will love these freshmen ?

? https://t.co/PXLtrpA6uL pic.twitter.com/10OCvLDhUm

— LSU Women's Basketball (@LSUwbkb) October 9, 2023

Reese and last year’s SEC Freshman of the Year, guard Flau’jae Johnson, are the heavy hitters when it comes to returners, but the program’s haul from the transfer portal was nothing short of spectacular. Grad transfer and ex-Louisville guard Hailey Van Lith led the Cardinals to the 2022 Final Four and could easily reach the 2,000 points mark for her career as she pairs with Johnson to be a dangerous duo on the Tigers’ backcourt, for instance. 

But the Tigers’ grab from the portal of DePaul transfer Aneesah Morrow — a two-time All-American for the Blue Demons who had video game numbers of 23.8 points, 12.2 rebounds, 2.7 steals and 1.5 blocks per game across two seasons — to pair with Reese at the forward slots gives LSU a rebounding and defensive tandem unlike any ever seen in college hoops before, considering that the duo made up two of just the five players nationally to record at least 400 boards on the season (with Reese tallying a national-best 555). 

Five-star freshman Mikaylah Williams should round out the starting lineup most nights after being twice named Louisiana’s Gatorade Player of the Year, and though questions remain about the roster — such as LSU lacking a true elite point guard or experienced collegiate center — the amount of sheer talent in the program could be enough for those downsides to not even matter.

History of Back-to-Backs

In Division I women’s basketball, consecutive championships haven’t necessarily been rare, per se, but the teams that have gone back-to-back are. Only three programs — UConn, Tennessee, and USC — can claim consecutive women’s hoops national titles. 

The Trojans did it in 1983-84 when one of the greatest players of all time, Cheryl Miller, was balling out in Los Angeles, while the Lady Vols and Huskies have each done it multiple times with UConn even four-peating from 2013-16. The Tigers can join an exclusive club and are certainly in the running to pull it off; the Associated Press hasn’t released its preseason top 25 poll yet as of this writing, but The Athletic (along with likely numerous other outlets) currently has LSU ranked No. 1 in its version of the poll, which is little surprise considering Mulkey’s penchant for building and sustaining championship programs and the Tigers’ incredible offseason haul in the transfer market. 

Energized. Hungry. Relentless. pic.twitter.com/7EJOHT5IzU

— LSU Women's Basketball (@LSUwbkb) October 6, 2023

The competition that’s chasing LSU, however, remains fierce as a retooled (and who hopes to be healthy) UConn, always-dangerous South Carolina, and Caitlin Clark-led Iowa, among others, all remain in the hunt right behind the Tigers with similarly loaded squads and pedigree to make a deep NCAA Tournament run. But if top-to-bottom talent on a roster is what you seek, you’d be hard-pressed to find a program more tailored to a national championship at the moment than LSU. 

With Reese leading the charge after a career year and plenty of epic performances on the way to the program’s first-ever women’s basketball national title, it’s awfully difficult to find a reason to go against the Tigers, either.