Southern women start the season with Spring Hill on Saturday before moving on to difficult preconference run

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana -- A brutal preconference schedule has been a staple of the Sandy Pugh era at Southern, which is now in its 17th year.

Pugh relishes the idea of putting her women's basketball team up against some of the nation’s best programs to prepare the Jaguars for Southwestern Athletic Conference play.

It forces the players to come together and pushes them to their limits so that, when they play teams at their own level, there’s no intimidation or concern about the other side.

The tradition continues in 2016.

Southern travels to Michigan State, No. 9 UCLA, No. 7 Ohio State and Texas A&M, all before Christmas. Pugh will quickly discover what her team is made of.

But before the Jaguars hit the road to East Lansing, Michigan, on Tuesday, they’ll host Division II Spring Hill in their season opener at 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

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