BATON ROUGE — It is now a case of going from the frying pan to the fire as the LSU men must shake off a 60-59 loss at the University of New Orleans Tuesday night and quickly prepare for the Houston Cougars who come to the Maravich Assembly Center on Thursday night at 7 p.m.
The contest will be regionally televised on Fox Sports’ SEC-T V package (Ch. 37 in Baton Rouge). The radio cast of the game will be available on the LSU Sports Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and on the Internet at The Tigers on Tuesday were forced to crawl out of a hole made by the shooting in the first half of the Privateers, which finally got its offensive game in tune in the first 16 minutes to shoot 70 percent. As it was in the first 20 minutes, UNO shot 63.6 percent (14-of-22) and led, 34-28, at the intermission.
LSU was trying to make a go of it without on-floor leader and the team’s second leading scorer Collis Temple who sprained his right ankle in the first half last Saturday against McNeese State. He is listed as questionable for the Houston game, but may be needed for LSU to get some of its offensive consistency back on track.
Although, Antonio Hudson stepped into the Temple’s spot and got some of his points back with a strong16-point effort on 5-of-9 shooting including four treys. It was Hudson who helped with the Tigers second-half comeback which appeared to give them a chance to win the game.
Down 51-47 with 7:07 to play, Brad Bridgewater dunked one off an offensive rebound to cut it to two and then Hudson tied it up with a jumper from up top to make it 51-51 with 5:53 left. After a UNO free throw and a timeout by LSU, Charlie Thompson found himself with a wide-open 3 pointer which he buried to give LSU a 54-52 advantage. Torris Bright would make four free throws and LSU had a 58-52 lead at the 3:29 media timeout and looked ready to capture the contest.
But LSU would score one point from there as Ben Wilson hit a three and Victor Brown buried a jumper to make it 58-57 with 1:55 left. Ronald Dupree missed two shots before UNO turned it over to Dupree, who was fouled with 26 seconds left. Dupree made the first toss to make it 59-57 and after the miss, UNO came down found Wilson on the left wing wide open for a three to give UNO a 60-59 lead with 11.1 seconds to play.
LSU had three shots at it, but couldn’t score to end the game. Hudson led the 8-2 Tigers in scoring with his 16 points, while Dupree added 13 and Bridgewater 11. Romero led UNO with 17 points while Brown had 13 for the winning Privateers (5-6).
Houston comes in with a 5-3 record after defeating Southwest Texas State, 89-62, on Sunday in Houston. The Cougars were led by Kevin Gaines who made 9-of-10 field goals in a 20-points effort. Louis Truscott and Patrick Okafor had 15 points each as the Cougars shot 64.6 percent, 74 percent in the first half in opening a 52-20 lead.
The Cougars have won five of the last six after opening with two straight losses in the Maui Classic. Okafor is the team’s leading scorer, averaging 15.3 points per game with Gaines putting points in a 14.0 clip per game.
Tickets for the game are $10 each and will be available on sale Wednesday and Thursday during the day at the LSU Athletic Ticket Office. Tickets will go on sale at 3:30 p.m. Thursday for the first game of the doubleheader between the Rice Owls and the LSU Lady Tigers which is scheduled for 4:30 p.m.