BATON ROUGE — The LSU Tigers scored 124 points, dished out 32 assists, hit 15 treys and grabbed 51 rebounds in a 124-78 exhibition men’s basketball victory over the Houston Sports Group Monday night at the Maravich Center.
The Tigers scored 62 points each half and turned the ball over only nine times as 12 Tigers played and nine scored.
LSU opens the 2004-05 regular season Friday night at the Maravich Center in the LSU Louisiana Classic, meeting Tulane at 8 p.m. in the final game of the first-round doubleheader. Louisiana Tech and Louisiana Lafayette meet in the session opener at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office and online at www.LSUsports.net for $17 for middle level tickets and $15 for upper level tickets for the two-game session. Fans will also be able to get in for the special price of $5 by bringing a donation of canned food to the game for the Baton Rouge Food Bank for Friday’s opening round. The championship round is set for Sunday.
Five players were in double figures for LSU with Darrel Mitchell hitting 10-of-16 field goals, including 5-of-10 three-pointers to score 27 points to go with nine assists and five steals in 32 minutes. Brandon Bass hit eight-of-eight at the free throw line and six-of-seven from the field to score 20 points with nine rebounds in 20 minutes. Tack Minor added 15 points and five assists, with Antonio Hudson getting 13 points and Regis Koundjia 10.
LSU shot 57 percent from the field (45-of-79) and 50 percent from three-point range (15-of-30).
Terrance Simmons, who played at LSU for one year in the 1990s before transferring to Minnesota, led the Sports Group with 22 points, while Willie Byrd added 13, Ransom White 13 (also 13 rebounds), and Roy Wills 10.
“I thought offensively we were better, particularly in the open floor,” said LSU Coach John Brady. “We were able to get out into transition and do some things. That’s what we’ve been work on, and that was positive. We made open shots for the most part, shared the ball — we had 32 assists. That’s what we’ve been trying to do is play at a faster pace, and I think we showed that (tonight).
“Defensively, I think 78 points is too many for us to give up. We did guard them decent, but I thought we gave up too many points on occasion. Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate defensively like you need to when you know you’re going to in the game and the score becomes spread like it was. We improved from a week ago, and we’ve got to get better the next couple of days because it opens up for real Friday against Tulane.”