BATON ROUGE, La.—LSU running back Charles Scott has a fractured collarbone and will miss the rest of the regular season. LSU spokesman Michael Bonnette announced the injury yesterday. Scott was injured in the second half of the Tigers’ 24-15 loss to Alabama on Saturday. IOWA CITY, Iowa—Talk about a tough day for the Hawkeyes.

Virginia Tech, which crushed ACC rival Boston College 48-14 on Saturday, benefitted from LSU’s loss to top-ranked Florida and rose from No. 5 to No. 4 in The Associated Press Top 25. The Tigers had been No. 4 before their 13-3 loss to the Gators. LSU fell to No. 10. Poll, Page C2

Alligator will be served at tailgating parties across LSU’s campus and the noise in Death Valley will be deafening. That much can be predicted with near certainty when No. 1 Florida visits the fourth-ranked Tigers tonight in a highly anticipated matchup of unbeaten teams. As for what may happen inside the lines, there’s a lot more suspense.

OMAHA, Neb.—One night after his shortest outing of the season, Taylor Jungmann turned in his longest and best. Now Texas and LSU have a showdown for the national title. The Longhorns’ freshman All-American limited LSU to five hits in his first complete game, and Russell Moldenhauer hit his record-tying fourth home run of the College World Series as Texas evened the best-of-three finals, 5-1 over LSU on Tuesday night.

OMAHA, Neb. -  Texas freshman All-American Taylor Jungmann limited LSU to five hits in his first complete game, leading the Longhorns to a 5-1 win Tuesday night and forcing a winner-take-all game in the College World Series.

OMAHA, Neb.—Mikie Mahtook singled in the winning run in the top of the 11th inning after DJ LeMahieu tied the game in the ninth, and LSU survived Texas’ five home runs to beat the Longhorns 7-6 in Game 1 of the College World Series finals last night. LSU (55-16) would win its sixth national title with a victory over the Longhorns (49-15-1) tonight.

OMAHA, Neb. - Texas coach Augie Garrido conceded that his team’s College World Series finals opponent has played the best of any team in Omaha. LSU, after all, has outscored its opponents 32-11 in its three wins. “But if it’s about drama,“ Garrido said, “we’ve got that.“ No matter what happens in the best-of-three finals starting tomorrow, it’ll be tough for Texas to top its finish in a 4-3 victory over Arizona State in Friday night’s Bracket 2 final. That followed LSU’s 14-5 Bracket 1 win over Arkansas in the afternoon.

Emotionally speaking, Louisiana State coach Paul Mainieri was spent. Getting to the College World Series, regardless of expectations, takes a toll on a program’s skipper. Take into account that top-ranked LSU, a national powerhouse, was coming off a trip to Omaha and considered a lock for the sport’s ultimate stage, and it becomes understandable how the pressure built before the first pitch of the season was thrown.

For the Virginia baseball team, the road to the College World Series title goes through Louisiana State University.

IOWA CITY, Iowa—Even though Oklahoma’s Courtney Paris failed to get a double-double, she still did more than enough to help lead the Sooners get to the round of 16. Danielle Robinson scored 17 points and had seven assists, Whitney Hand added 15 and the top-seeded Sooners beat Georgia Tech 69-50 Tuesday night to advance to regional semifinals.

BATON ROUGE, La.—Angel McCoughtry scored 28 points and Louisville advanced to its second straight regional semifinal with a 62-52 victory over LSU on Tuesday night. Candyce Bingham added 17 points for the third-seeded Cardinals (31-4), who ended sixth-seeded LSU’s bid to reach an unprecedented sixth-straight Final Four. Allison Hightower scored 21 for the Lady Tigers (19-11), who saw their streak of NCAA tournament victories on their home floor snapped at 12.

Heels thwart Tigers Ellington, Lawson spur North Carolina into region semifinals Amid all the hand-wringing and inquisitions this week about Ty Lawson’s jammed right big toe—with pun-favoring observers even suggesting it might stub North Carolina’s national-championship aspirations—maybe everyone forgot the Tar Heels have another player who is performing as well as anyone in the country right now.

North Carolina coach Roy Williams sat down for his news conference yesterday, fully aware of what the assembled media hounds were about to ask. So before anyone could spit out a question, Williams said, “I don’t know.“ He was talking, of course, about the health of junior point guard Ty Lawson, whose jammed right big toe has received an absurd amont of attention in the past two weeks, certainly enough to make his other 19 phalanges burn more from jealousy than from blisters.

LSU’s Chris Johnson faces UNC in a second-round game. Big man isn’t big enough LSU’s Johnson eats 5,000 calories a day, can’t keep them on The purple practice jersey, size triple-extra large, drooped off Chris Johnson’s shoulders as he sat in Louisiana State’s locker room yesterday at the Greensboro Coliseum. His shorts exposed legs so spindly that you could see every ridge of his knee bones. On the floor between his feet sat a can of vanilla protein shake.

GREENSBORO, N.C.—Marcus Thornton wasn’t around for LSU’s last NCAA tournament appearance, stuck instead at a junior college while those other homegrown Tigers reached the Final Four. He finally got his chance on the sport’s grandest stage, and played like he plans on hanging around for a while—especially when upset-minded Butler threatened to end things.