BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team puts a 14-game home winning streak on the line Saturday at the Maravich Assembly Center when the Tigers open Southeastern Conference play against the Alabama Crimson Tide.
The Tigers and Tide meet at 12:30 p.m. in the opening game of the league’s syndicated television package on Jefferson Pilot Sports (WAFB-TV, Channel 9 in Baton Rouge). The game will be broadcast on the LSU Sports Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and over the Internet at www.lsusports.net.
Tickets for the game will go on sale at 10:30 a.m. at the Maravich Assembly Center box office for $10 each. Doors will open at 11 a.m.
Alabama is ranked 18th in this week’s Associated Poll, starting out with an 11-1 record, the only loss coming to Cincinnati in the finals of a Christmas tournament in Puerto Rico. The Tigers are 9-1 on the season, coming off a 73-69 win over Wyoming on Wednesday night which ran LSU’s record to 7-0 at home this season and gave LSU a 14-game home winning streak dating back to last year.
The home winning streak is tied for the fifth longest in Maravich Assembly Center history. LSU won both meetings with the Tide a year ago, including the conference opening, 78-68, victory at the Maravich Assembly Center last January.
LSU is expected to go with its normal three-guard rotation of Torris Bright, Lamont Roland and Collis Temple along with forwards Brian Beshara and Ronald Dupree. Dupree is second in the league in scoring, averaging 18.6 points per game and fifth in rebounding at 9.1 boards a game.
All five LSU starters average in double figures scoring with Temple at 15.7 points per game, Bright at 13.8, Beshara at 13.1 and Roland at 10.6 a game.
Alabama is paced by sophomore guard Rod Grizzard in its three-guard offense as the Birmingham native leads the league in scoring at 19.1 points per game. Terrance Meade averaged 13 points and Erwin Dudley 14.5 in the Alabama lineup. Also coming off the bench for the Tide, coached by Mark Gottfried is freshman Gerald Wallace, averaging 14.8 points a contest.
The game also marks the return of former LSU player and associate coach Johnny Jones, who is now an assistant coach with the Crimson Tide. Jones played on the 1981 LSU Final Four team and served as an assistant following his playing days through former coach Dale Brown‘s retirement in 1997.
This is the middle game of a three-game homestand for LSU as the Tigers host Vanderbilt in a 7 p.m. game on Wednesday night at the Assembly Center.