TAMPA, Fla. — Normally, sunny, hot Florida is a perfect senior destination.

Except these seniors aren’t the retiring types. The entire starting lineups for Tennessee and LSU could be taking the basketball court for the final time when they meet in the Women’s Final Four.

So it’s all about tonight, beginning at approximately 9:30 (TV: ESPN) at the St. Pete Times Forum. Safe to say this is no bingo gathering.

“It’s going to be a war,’’ UT coach Pat Summitt said.

The battle between these SEC rivals begins after Connecticut and Stanford play the other national semifinal game at 7. The winners meet Tuesday night for the national championship.

The prelude to the actual competition was a scramble for the motivational high ground on Saturday. LSU coach Van Chancellor came out firing in his team’s press conference, taking shots at what he perceived to be a prevailing sentiment for UT (34-2) and top-ranked Connecticut to meet in the championship game.

He was thinking the Lady Tigers (31-5), who are making a Division I record-tying fifth consecutive Final Four appearance, deserve better.

“I get here, I turn on the television and I see on Outside the Lines with ESPN and I see a guy saying it’s going to be — welcome to Monday’s press conference between Pat Summitt and Geno (Auriemma); Like LSU’s not playing,’’ Chancellor said. “I pick up today’s paper and I see where a coach says it’s going to be a great game between LSU and — between Tennessee and Connecticut Tuesday.

“… I just think this team deserves a little more respect than what it’s getting.”

Chancellor’s good-natured, stream-of-consciousness rant likely was intended for his locker room. It would’ve fallen on deaf ears in Tennessee’s. Over there, Lady Vols senior center Nicky Anosike was recalling UT’s 78-62 loss to LSU on Feb. 14 as if it happened last week.

“I think we still have a lot to prove against LSU,’’ she said. “They embarrassed us on our home floor. We’re glad to be playing them. We still have a lot to prove.”

Anosike conceded that Tennessee’s follow-up 61-55 victory over LSU in the SEC tournament championship game eased some of the anguish, but only to a point.

Fellow senior Alexis Hornbuckle agreed.

“They’re a team you can’t sleep on,’’ she said. “They gave us every bit of that in Knoxville and they didn’t make it easy to win the SEC tournament championship. So we know it’s not going to get any easier.”

The soundness of the defeat apparently has resonated more than the satisfaction of the victory.

“We had to go back and look at ourselves in the mirror after that,’’ Anosike said of the first game. “We let a lot of our fans down. None of us want to feel that again.”

Likewise, LSU doesn’t want to feel the frustration of another failed attempt to win a Final Four game. The Lady Tigers are 0-for-4 on their previous four trips. Their desire to win a game was Tennessee’s desire last season in Cleveland. It propelled the Lady Vols to a comeback victory over North Carolina in the semifinals, which led to a victory over Rutgers in the national championship game.

“Realizing we got there as freshmen and fell short as sophomores, when we got there as juniors, the motivation was we were not going home until we got the opportunity to play in the championship game,’’ Hornbuckle said. “For them to be seniors, to be here, they’re going to play with everything they have.”

All of this familiarity makes the game feel like part of a playoff series to UT assistant coach Dean Lockwood.

“I’ve never coached in the NBA or the WNBA,’’ he said, “but this must be what it feels like to be in the best of seven or the best of five.

In this case, it’s a best of three. And the Lady Vols face the biggest adjustment in the deciding game, considering star player Candace Parker’s ailing left shoulder. They’ll be more hard pressed to play their usual role in this get-together.

Play it they must, though, or their seniors retire for good.

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.