BOSSIER CITY, La. — LSU men’s basketball coach John Brady hopes Tuesday’s loss to Houston was a lesson learned as the Tigers take on the Centenary Gents in the Century Tel Center here Saturday at 7 p.m.
Although the game is being played in the Shreveport-Bossier home area of Centenary, the game will not be played at the school’s on-campus site, the Gold Dome (3,500) opting for the bigger, newer municipal arena on the Bossier City side of the Red River.
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 playing in Shreveport for the first time since a December 1999 game with Centenary at Hirsch Coliseum, a game that was LSU’s home game to fulfill a recruiting promise for former LSU player and now Memphis NBA star Stromile Swift.
But the game has developed even more important for the 8-1 Tigers coming off a 60-52 loss at Houston on Tuesday in which the Tigers fell behind, 21-3, in the first six minutes. LSU was able to get the game back to two points with five minutes to play, but couldn’t get over the hump to get back even or ahead as LSU’s perimeter continued to struggle from the field.
Against Houston, the perimeter players were just 8-of-32 from the field and 4-of-18 from three-point range. For the season, the perimeter players are hitting just 24 percent from three-point range.
LSU as a team is hitting 47 percent from the field, but those numbers are obviously helped by the 62 percent shooting of Jaime Lloreda and Brandon Bass’s 53 percent inside on the block.
Lloreda and Bass both came up with double doubles in the loss to Houston, but the scoring was a struggle battling double and triple teams as the Cougars packed a zone defense deeper and deeper with every LSU missed shot.
Centenary is 6-4 on the season after a 73-60 loss at McNeese State on Dec. 30. Andrew Wisniewski, the 6-3 senior from Staten Island, New York, continues to lead the team at 19.4 points per game and 5.1 assists per game after averaging over 20 points a year ago. Michael Gale averages 11 points and Rickey Evans 10 for the Gents, playing their first season as members of the Mid-Continent Conference.
This will be LSU’s next-to-last non-conference game of the year and the final tune up for the opening of Southeastern Conference play on Tuesday at Arkansas in a game to be televised on ESPN. LSU returns home for its conference opener on Saturday, Jan. 10 against Alabama in an afternoon regionally televised game on JP Sports.