NEW ORLEANS -- The drive from LSU's Baton Rouge campus to the New Orleans Arena generally takes less than 90 minutes. But LSU's Lady Tigers expect that to be of little significance in terms of crowd support during their national semifinal game against Tennessee.

The arena is set up to seat 18,211 for the Final Four -- which is sold out -- but the allotment for each school was only about 800 tickets. LSU pleaded for more and got an extra 50 tickets.

A number of tickets go to corporate sponsors and NCAA officials, with about 5,000 left for the general public, distributed through a lottery about a year in advance.

Since Connecticut and Tennessee are Final Four contenders annually -- Tennessee is appearing in its eighth Final Four in the past 10 years and 15th overall -- their fans tend to enter the ticket lottery with the greatest frequency.

So interim coach Dana Chatman expects there to be many more fans wearing Volunteer orange on Sunday than the Tigers' purple and gold.

Regardless of how strong a showing LSU fans make, Tennessee players suspect the Lady Tigers will nonetheless be in a comfortable environment, having even played in the New Orleans Arena earlier this season.

"I don't know if one team will have more fans than the others, but to me they're still playing on their home court,'' Tennessee's Tasha Butts said.

LSU head coach Sue Gunter, who has been on leave since earlier this season with a lung infection, intends to watch LSU's semifinal game from a hotel room nearby.

It won't be the first time that timing deprived Gunter of what could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

She was selected as the U.S. women's basketball coach for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, which the United States decided to boycott in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

She has coached LSU for 22 years, but this is LSU's first Final Four.

LSU will play Sunday against Tennessee, whose coach, Pat Summitt, said she was heartbroken for Gunter, even though Gunter is described by players as upbeat and not feeling sorry for herself.

"This does not seem fair,'' Summit said. "But the way she's handled this is the way she handles everything and that's with a very positive, upbeat attitude. So I wish her the very best.''

The practice schedule gave Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma a tangible way to show his players the growth of UConn women's basketball and the sport as a whole since the Huskies' first Final Four in 1991.

On Friday, Connecticut practiced at Lakefront Arena at the University of New Orleans, the arena that hosted the NCAA women's championship in 1991, which was won by Tennessee.

"I took my team over there and we walked in and I said to them, 'This is where the Final Four was in 1991 when we came here,' and they all looked around and said, 'You got to be kidding,' '' Auriemma said.

Lakefront Arena holds about 10,000, but attendance was 7,931 for the semifinals and 7,865 for the final.

"It wasn't sold out,'' Auriemma recalled. "And it's just more of ... how far our program has come and the game of (women's) basketball has come, and really in a short time when you think about it.''

Last year in Atlanta, UConn played before nearly 30,000 spectators and a national television audience.

Minnesota center Janel McCarville, who has double-doubles in points and rebounds in all four NCAA Tournament games, also has gained a measure of attention for how accurately she passes the ball, especially for a frontcourt player.

One of her favorite plays is the length-of-the-court pass to guard Lindsay Whalen when Whalen releases early after an opposing team's shot.

McCarville credits her time playing football with her brothers for her passing ability.

"I was able to throw the football ... I guess that's how the long pass got started between me and Whalen,'' McCarville said. "But I love to get other people involved. I almost like passing more than scoring. It makes the team harder to guard.''

This year's national semifinals pits a pair of Final Four regulars against a pair of newcomers.

Tennessee, appearing in its NCAA-record 15th women's Final Four, plays first-timer LSU. UConn, making its eighth Final Four appearance since 1991, plays Final Four neophyte Minnesota, which won just eight games three seasons ago.

"Oh my God, I did not know the Final Four was this big,'' LSU forward Hannah Biernacka said. "We've had a lot of people congratulating us.''

That perspective stood in sharp contrast to UConn senior guard Maria Conlon, who has finished her previous three seasons as the member of a national championship team.

"Every year our standard is higher,'' Conlon said. "Anything shorter than a national championship isn't good enough.''

Tennessee junior forward Brittney Jackson still doesn't know what it's like to miss a Final Four, but she also has yet to win a title with the Lady Vols.

"I have been lucky enough to be at the Final Four for three straight years, but you have to focus and not get distracted with the other stuff going on,'' she said.

Minnesota coach Pam Borton bristled at the idea that her seventh-seeded team's string of upsets en route to the Final Four was the equivalent of crashing a private party.

"We definitely belong here. There's no doubt in my mind we don't feel like we're crashing anybody's party,'' Borton said. "We are here to win the whole thing.''

When LSU interim coach Dana Chatman played for the Lady Tigers in 1991, she was confident her club was headed for the Final Four in New Orleans.

LSU had defeated eventual national champion Tennessee in the Southeastern Conference tournament championship and was set to host Lamar in the NCAA tournament, but Big Bird and company got in the way. Sesame Street Live had reserved the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on the day LSU was supposed to host the game, so the Lady Tigers had to play at Lamar, where they lost.

Chatman said she felt having to go on the road hurt LSU's momentum.

"The Big Bird, wow, I still don't watch that,'' she said. "Does he still exist? Is there still Big Bird? ... In retrospect it was pretty devastating.''