BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s basketball team plays host to its first ESPN televised basketball game Tuesday night at 6 p.m. when the eighth-ranked Florida basketball team comes to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Gators are 16-5 and 6-4 in the SEC East, while the Tigers have lost five straight and are 11-10 and 1-9 in the SEC West.
The LSU Athletic Department has declared the game against Florida to be “Mardi Gras Madness” night with all fans encouraged to show up in their Mari Gras attire.
Tickets remain on sale for LSU’s first Super Tuesday appearance on ESPN since January 1996. That was also the last time ESPN broadcast a game from the Maravich Assembly Center. All upper level tickets (normally $10 each) are now only $5 (with a minimum purchase of two tickets). Tickets are available at the LSU Athletic Ticket Office on the first floor of the LSU Athletic Administration Building or by calling (225) 578-2184.
The game will also be broadcast on the LSU Sports Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and on the Internet at www.LSUsports.net.
Bank One will sponsor the “Student Mutual Fund Shootout” during one timeout during the game and two LSU students will compete for a $250 Mutual Fund, courtesy of Bank One, which will also sponsor the halftime show, The Balancing Brothers, a well-known trick group which has appeared on many nationally-televised programs.
Free Mardi Gras trinkets and beads will be given away throughout the game and fans are encouraged to show the ESPN cameras the spirit of Louisiana during the game, which fans are reminded is at an earlier time because of the television broadcast, 6 p.m.
LSU will start its normal lineup of Torris Bright, Collis Temple and Jermaine Williams at guards and forwards Brian Beshara and
Ronald Dupree. Williams is coming off a career high game of 22 points in the loss to Auburn on Saturday and Dupree failed to break double figures for the first time all season with seven against Auburn. Dupree remains second in the league in both scoring (17.9 ppg) and rebounds (9.0 rpg).
“We’ve got another difficult challenge against Florida,” said LSU Coach John Brady. “It will be a difficult task to defend them.
“We ran better offense and the quality of our shot against Auburn was pretty good,” the LSU coach said. “For our team not to be able to make some shots really compounds our problems. We don’t have any way to change our team or change the personality of it. We can’t go anywhere else and manufacture the points. Defensively, we are fine. We did some things from an effort stand point that is quite good.”