BATON ROUGE — LSU men’s basketball team opens up the 2003-04 regular season Friday as it plays host to their cross-town rival Southern at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center at 7 p.m. CST.
Tickets for the season opener can be purchased for $10 at the upper ticket windows of the Assembly Center beginning 90 minutes prior to tip off. Tickets can also be purchased in advance on the LSU web site, www.LSUsports.net. The game will be broadcast on the LSU Sports Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and on the Internet at www.LSUsports.net.
The Tigers are beginning their 96th season after overcoming slow starts to split their two exhibition games, losing to Global Sports, 68-64, and downing the Southeastern All-Stars, 77-64. In the Global Sports game, the Tigers were down 16 at the half before rallying to have the ball with a chance to tie in the final 12 seconds, while against Southeastern, the Tigers came from nine back at the half to win, shooting 54 percent in the second half.
Junior guard Antonio Hudson led LSU in the Global game with 15 points, while in the two exhibition games, freshman forward Brandon Bass had 11 points and eight rebounds against Global and 21 points and 12 rebounds against the All-Stars.
Coach John Brady is hoping that the two exhibition games will prepare LSU for the opening challenges ahead.
“We’ve kind of played like we are — inexperienced, youngest team in the league roster stand point,” said Brady. “The surprising thing is two freshman (Bass, Darnell Lazare) have been our most consistent players in the exhibitions. Unless our perimeter plays early without Jaime (Lloreda) in the game (Hudson, Darrel Mitchell, Xavier Whipple), we are going to play like the team we are–inexperienced. I told our team after our last exhibition that the team is on Mitchell, Whipple and Hudson. They just need to play better and more consistent and if they do that, we’ll be okay early on.”
Lloreda is expected not to play in the game against the Jaguars as he continues serving the discipline package in place for a team policy violation during the summer.
Southern is coming off a 70-67 win against VASDA Gold in its lone exhibition game. Timothy Johnson led the Jaguars with 17 points. The LSU game will be Southern’s first game under new head coach Michael Grant.
LSU and Southern continue to build on its cross-town rivalry as the teams meet for the sixth time. In the last meeting, then-freshman Antonio Hudson helped lead the Tigers to a 97-69 win over Jaguars at the Assembly Center as he scored 19 points. Southern played two games last year at the Assembly Center as part of the season-opening Hispanic College Funds Classic, but did not face the Tigers.
If as expected, Bass and/or Lazare get the start, they will be the first freshman to start an LSU season-opener since Torris Bright was a freshman first-game starter in November 1999.
Friday’s game will make the first of four home games in nine days o open the season for the Tigers as they face McNeese State on Monday, followed by Troy State on Wednesday. Both of those games will start at 7 p.m. CST. The four-game session concludes on Saturday, Nov. 29 against Louisiana-Monroe and that game will start at 2 p.m. CST. That game is an afternoon game although most of the published pieces list the game at 7 p.m.