LSU women's basketball's NCAA Tournament 1-seed race: Where do Kim Mulkey's Tigers stand?

As the regular season hits its final stretch and teams slide into postseason play, LSU women's basketball will have a bit of scoreboard watching to do.

Kim Mulkey has guided No. 4 LSU (26-1, 14-1 SEC) to a blistering record, one of the best seasons in the program's history, in her second season in Baton Rouge. And because of it, the Tigers claimed the No. 2 seed in the SEC Tournament next week and have their sights set on earning a No. 1 seed in next month's NCAA Tournament.

While LSU is in the thick of the conversation, Mulkey has said she doesn't believe her team will end up on the top line due to its weak non-conference strength of schedule, ranked near No. 300 nationally, in comparison to other teams in the running like Stanford, Utah, UConn, Maryland and Iowa.

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"The (selection) committee will sit in there and have it's opinions on non-conference strength of schedule," Mulkey said. "If we had beaten South Carolina, would we have jumped to the 1-line? I doubt it. Because the non-conference strength of schedule is not going to change."

"I don't know that it matters."

What could alter the outcome will be what the other teams in the conversation do during conference tournaments. UConn is only 3-2 in its last five games. Stanford needed double-overtime to win at Colorado on Thursday and plays at Utah on Saturday. Maryland drummed Iowa on national television.

If LSU can avoid losses to teams it should beat, then who knows how this thing shakes out. But here's how the latest bracketology lines up for Mulkey's bunch ahead of Sunday's regular-season finale at home vs. Mississippi State (5 p.m., SEC Network):

ESPN's Charlie Creme

ESPN women's basketball analyst and bracketologist Charlie Creme tweeted, following UConn's loss to St. John's on Tuesday, that LSU had moved up to the 1-line in his projections. But in its top-16 reveal on Thursday, the selection committee favored Utah over LSU for the final No. 1 seed.

The Tigers did their part and took care of business at Vanderbilt on Thursday. For weeks now, LSU has been holding steady as a No. 2 seed in ESPN's bracket while, in the human polls, it had climbed as high as No. 2 in the USA TODAY Coaches' Poll before the matchup with South Carolina a couple of weeks ago.

CBS Sports' Connor Groel

CBS Sports isn't quite ready to move the Tigers up to a No. 1 seed. It's latest projections had LSU firmly as a No. 2 seed along with Utah, while five other teams (Virginia Tech, Maryland, Duke, Iowa and Notre Dame) were vying for the other two 2 seeds.

While Groel doesn't flush out a projected bracket, only forecasting seeds, the Tigers would matchup with either Fairleigh Dickinson or a Southern Utah in the opening round inside the Pete Maravich Center. The other potential matchup in Baton Rouge would be No. 7 Oklahoma State against No. 10 Columbia.

Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers and Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers and Cajuns coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU/UL athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: NCAA Tournament projections: LSU women's basketball eyeing No. 1 seed