BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team plays its final home game of the season Wednesday night against nationally-ranked Ole Miss and prior to the game, three seniors will be honored in Senior Night Ceremonies.
The Tigers and Rebels will tip off just after 7 p.m., but LSU fans are urged to arrive early for the 6:45 p.m. pre-game ceremonies honoring Brian Beshara, Lamont Roland and Jack Warner, the three Tiger seniors.
Beshara and Warner are expected to see action in the final home game of their LSU careers, while Roland will watch from court side as he recovers from surgery from a torn ACL which occurred on the same court in the Southeastern Conference opening game against Alabama on Jan. 6.
Tickets for the game are available at the LSU Athletic Ticket Office during the day on Wednesday and beginning two hours prior to tipoff at the Maravich Assembly Center box office.
The game will be broadcast on the LSU Sports Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and on the Internet at There will be no live television for the home finale, but the game will be seen on a tape-delay basis in Baton Rouge on the Pelican Sports Network (Cable Channel 18 at 1 p.m. Thursday and 7 p.m. Friday).
Beshara is wrapping up his fourth year in the program, including his first year as a redshirt transfer from Rice. He has been a starter virtually his entire career, and he is expected to make his 85th start in 86 career games on Wednesday. He has an outside chance in the remaining three games of becoming the 31st player in LSU history to go past the 1,000 career point mark. He is a two-time member of the All-Academic Honor Roll in the league.
Warner is the veteran of the group, having walked on to the team five years ago in Dale Brown‘s final season. The senior has been a crowd favorite his entire career and has usually been able to come in and fire in a three-pointer when given the opportunity. This season, he has played in 14 games, two short of the 16 games he appeared in as a freshman.
Roland came in as the 1999 junior college player of the year and turned into not only a scoring threat, but a defensive stopper for the Tigers during the 2000 NCAA Sweet 16 campaign. He was reprising that role in 2000-2001 when the knee injury happened which sidelined him and helped shipwreck the Tigers season.
LSU is 11-14, 1-13 in the league with a regular season game at Tennessee on Saturday remaining. The Rebels are 22-5, 10-4 in the SEC West, two games up on Arkansas and Alabama for the division crown. Ole Miss is one game behind Kentucky and in the battle with Florida (also 10-4) for the overall division crown.
The game is expected to be another defensive struggle like the Feb.7 battle in Oxford in which the Rebels won, 50-33. In that game, LSU committed 25 turnovers and shot under 30 percent from the field, while out rebounding the Rebels by 12 and getting 17 offensive boards.
Ole Miss comes in ranked No. 14 in the Associated Press poll and No. 12 in the ESPN/USA Today poll after winning seven of its last eight games.