BATON ROUGE — The LSU Tigers look to finish the pre-Christmas schedule on an up note when they travel to Houston to take on the Houston Cougars Tuesday night at 7p.m. at Hofheinz Pavilion.
The Tigers are 5-2 coming off a tough overtime loss, 88-84, Saturday in Biloxi against Southern Mississippi. Houston is 7-3 after a 68-61 win over Southeastern Louisiana on Saturday. The Cougars are coached by Tom Penders in his first year, coming off a three-year absence from the coaching game after a distinguished career at Tufts, Columbia, Fordham, Rhode Island, Texas and George Washington. Penders has 534 wins in 30-plus seasons as a head coach with 16 post-season appearances.
Andre Owens is the big scorer for the Cougars, averaging almost 20 points a game. He had 20 against Southeastern on Saturday, but did not start because of a team rules violation. Brian Latham added 11 points in the win and point-guard Lanny Smith, who is averaging 14.4 points per game, had 10 assists.
LSU will be hoping for similar production from freshman Glen Davis, who had a breakout 27-point game against the Cougars Saturday. Brandon Bass, though limited in touches, made 6-of-7 field goal attempts and had a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds.
Against Southern Miss, LSU rallied from a 16-point mid-first half deficit and an 11-point margin at the break to come back with an impressive second-half effort to get three seven-point leads in the second half in the final nine minutes, the last with 3:07 to play. But LSU couldn’t hold the lead down the stretch and Southern Miss tied the game on a short shot with 1.1 to play, forcing the overtime.
Houston won last year’s contest, 60-52, also in Hofheinz Pavilion as LSU shot just 35.4 percent from the floor and 22 percent from three-point range. Bass double-doubled in the game, scoring 16 points with 11 rebounds.
Following the game, LSU will take off for Christmas before resuming practice on Dec. 26 in preparation for the Dec. 30 game in the New Orleans Arena in the Nokia Sugar Bowl Classic against Florida State.