BATON ROUGE — Tonight may be one of those special nights Saturday at the Maravich Assembly Center, as the Tigers and the University of New Orleans renew its basketball series for the first time since 1986 and both come in off strong starts with LSU 5-0 and UNO 5-2. Also on the program will be the retirement of the jersey No. 33 worn by Shaquille O’Neal in his three All-American years in Tiger Town.
The ceremonies get underway at approximately 6:50 p.m. at the Assembly Center. The game will follow the ceremonies.
Tickets are available for the game at the Assembly Center beginning two hours prior to the game and on the Internet at
The game will be broadcast on the LSU Sports Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and on the Internet. There will be no live television for the contest, but the game will be available on a one-day tape delay in the Baton Rouge area on KTTE-TV, Channel 11, at 1 and 7:30 p.m.
The ceremony will feature LSU Chancellor Dr. Mark Emmert, Athletic Director Joe Dean and former LSU men’s basketball coach Dale Brown, along with a video presentation on the big-screen scoreboards. The jersey will take its place on the LSU ring of honor in the Assembly Center with the other two retired numbers of Bob Pettit and Pete Maravich.
This will be the fourth jersey number officially retired by the school’s Athletic Department and Hall of Fame committee, joining Billy Cannon in football. This will be the first ceremony to officially retire a jersey since the final home game of Pete Maravich’s career in 1970.
O’Neal was in Baton Rouge Friday to participate in two other ceremonies at the Maravich Assembly Center in conjunction with commencement exercises as the center for the Los Angeles Lakers received his degree in General Studies. O’Neal was on stage and spoke to the graduates and crowd at the main ceremony at 8:45 a.m. and officially received his diploma at the 4 p.m. Arts and Sciences ceremony.
LSU and UNO will be meeting for the ninth time in school history with LSU holding a 5-3 advantage it the series. The teams are expected to meet next year in New Orleans before the third game of the three-game series takes place back in Baton Rouge.
LSU will go on the road following this game for a Wednesday night, Dec. 20, contest at Arizona on Fox Sports Net, before closing out the pre-Christmas schedule with a Dec. 22 game at the Maravich Assembly Center against Nicholls State.