By ROBERT CESSNA
Eagle Columnist

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BATON ROUGE, La. -- New York City is one of the greatest cities in the world. Hollywood is where stars are born.

The Texas A&M women's basketball team had the pleasure of visiting those cities during the last two NCAA Tournaments. But the Aggies can tell you the bright lights of those big cities don't hold a candle to Baton Rouge, La., when it comes to where they'd like to spend a weekend in March.

After being sent to both coasts, it was nice for the Aggies to take a 40-minute plane ride to their NCAA destination.

The A&M women's team didn't get to visit Times Square on Thursday, nor did they roam Universal Studios. The truth is they didn't do much of anything, really. Other than a little mall shopping, the highlight for the players was eating ribs over dinner with ESPN's Carolyn Peck, who will be working A&M's first-round game against Texas-San Antonio on Saturday.

The nice thing about being sent to Baton Rouge this year for the Aggies is simple enough to figure: A&M is one of the storylines, not just a visitor expected to be home in a couple of days.

A&M is seeded No. 2, its highest in school history. The Aggies' only true competition for the spotlight is LSU, also a No. 2 seed and one of eight teams at the Maravich Assembly Center vying for two spots to next week's Sweet 16.

All of this is old hat for the Tigers, who have made four straight Final Four appearances. A&M has made one Sweet 16 trip, which was in 1994. The Aggies have won one NCAA Tournament game since then, beating Texas-Arlington last year in the first round.

But the Aggies have earned the right for the short trip to Baton Rouge to share billing with LSU. A&M has won 13 of 14, capped with its first Big 12 tournament championship. The Aggies also have four victories over Top 20 teams during this run, and eight of the victories have come against teams in the NCAA Tournament.

Now comes the acid test. The Aggies deserve to be here; now all they have to do is show it when it matters the way LSU does year-in and year-out.

A&M head coach Gary Blair probably didn't spend as much time Thursday as a tour guide as he did in L.A. or Trenton, N.J., which is fine. Because this is not a vacation. This is the culmination of a lot of hard work by the seniors -- A'Quonesia Franklin, Morenike Atunrase, LaToya Gulley and Katy Pounds. They don't want it to end here.

They have been special, and Blair has treated them that way. He's scheduled games so they could see Hawaii, Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the Virgin Islands. He's made sure they developed as players and as Aggies.

Now, it's their time to take the coach places he's always wanted to go for the weekend, like Oklahoma City, site of next week's Sweet 16. Or they can really get exotic and take him to Tampa, Fla., in two weeks for the Final Four.

It all starts this weekend in lovely Baton Rouge.

• Robert Cessna's e-mail address is robert.cessna@theagle.com.

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