OXFORD, Miss. — The LSU Tigers begin a week of road games in the state of Mississippi and for at least the first part of the trip, the team will be missing one of its leading scorers, team leader Collis Temple, III.
The Tigers, minus Temple, will be at Tad Smith Coliseum Wednesday for a 7 p.m. SEC battle with Ole Miss. LSU is 12-5 and 2-2 in the SEC West, its best start since the 1995-96 season, while the Rebels are 14-4 and 3-2. Both teams are coming in off wins, the Tigers off a 75-58 win over Auburn Saturday in Baton Rouge, while the Rebels were 70-64 winners over Arkansas in a game played in Fayetteville.
Temple, who has already missed two games in December with a sprained right ankle and who played Saturday with a hip pointer suffered in the Jan. 16 loss to Florida. It appeared late in the game that Temple came down strange on his ankle and an MRI on Monday revealed a partially torn tendon in the right foot.
“It will keep him out of the Wednesday game and possibly Saturday when we go to Mississippi State,” said LSU Coach John Brady. “He will not make the trip so he can stay in Baton Rouge and meet the rehab requirements and see the doctors on a regular basis. This is the type of injury that he may be able to play for us later on, but it’s something that may not ever heal until the season is over. We will think of Collis first and his future in making any decisions regarding his playing time while recovering from this injury,” said the LSU Coach.
Antonio Hudson, the freshman from Grambling, will move into Temple’s spot in the LSU starting lineup along with Torris Bright at guard and Jermaine Williams, Ronald Dupree and Brad Bridgewater at forwards. Dupree had 25 points in the Auburn win and needs just 36 to join the LSU 1,000 career point club. Bridgewater had LSU’s first seven points in the win as LSU jumped out to a 20-4 lead and finished with 13 for the contest.
“We’re coming off an Auburn win where our team played well, particularly defensively,” said Brady. “We’ve had two days of preparation and we’ll go to Ole Miss and give it our best shot. We have to be able to guard them around the goal and get some rebounds for us to have a chance to win.”
The game will be broadcast on the LSU Sports Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and on the Internet at There is no television for the contest.
Saturday’s game is a 4 p.m. game at Starkville and that contest will be televised by SEC-TV (Fox Sports Cable Channel 37 in Baton Rouge). LSU’s next home game is Wednesday, Jan. 30, against Tennessee.