BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team continues its tour of hostile territories Wednesday as it travels to Starkville, Miss., to take on the Bulldogs of Mississippi State in a 7 p.m. game at Humphrey Coliseum.
The game will be regionally televised by JP Sports (WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge) and the radio broadcast will be available on the LSU Sports Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge, Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 102) and online at www.LSUsports.net.
The Tigers and Bulldogs will meet for the 88th time in Starkville, where MSU has won 54 times. LSU continues to lead the overall series, 98-88, but broke a four-game losing streak to the Bulldogs with a 69-62 decision at the Pete Maravich Center back on Jan. 29. In that game, Brandon Bass solidified his Southeastern Conference Player of the Week honors with a 26-point, 11-rebound, five-block performance, while Darrel Mitchell pumped in 20 from all over the basketball court.
LSU is coming off a 65-62 road loss at Arkansas on Saturday, but it was game that left LSU feeling much better about itself as the Tigers came from 15 down to have a good look in the air to tie the game at the buzzer that just feel short. It was performance that was much different than some of LSU’s other road efforts when the Tigers would fall behind and be unable to respond.
“I thought this past Saturday we showed some grit and toughness and came back,” said LSU Coach John Brady. “I thought Arkansas played extremely well. It’s an important game for them and for us. I like our team, and we have an opportunity to finish well if we could get a road win against Mississippi State.”
The Tigers are 13-8 overall, 6-4 in the SEC Western Division, the same record as Mississippi State, although the Bulldogs are 18-6 overall. The two teams are two games behind Alabama for the lead in the division, although both must face Alabama one more time this season. It appears to be a four-team race for the top two spots in the division with Arkansas entering the week at 5-6.
The game will be Coach John Brady‘s 400th game as a college head coach in his 14th year after six years at Samford and this his eighth at LSU.
LSU’s five starters are expected to remain the same for the 20th straight game with Tack Minor (11.1 ppg, 5.2 apg), Darrel Mitchell (13.5 ppg, 2.9 apg) and Antonio Hudson (13.2 ppg, 2.2 apg) at the guards and Bass (16.9 ppg, 8.3 rpg) and Glen Davis (13.0 ppg, 8.0 rpg) at the forwards.
The Tigers will face one of the league’s top starts in Mississippi State senior Lawrence Roberts, averaging 18.0 points per game and 11.2 rebounds per game. The Bulldogs are coming off a 60-54 win in Starkville on Saturday against Vanderbilt.
LSU returns to Baton Rouge for two home games in four days as it faces Florida Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Maravich Center followed by a visit from Alabama next Tuesday at 8 p.m. in a nationally televised game on ESPN. Tickets for both games are available at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office and online at www.LSUsports.net.