BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team, winners of eight-straight at home and 6-0 in the Southeastern Conference on the home court, try to keep the momentum toward a possible NCAA Tournament bid moving forward when they host the Alabama Crimson Tide Tuesday night at 8 p.m. in a nationally-televised Super Tuesday matchup on ESPN from the Pete Maravich Center.
The Tigers have won nine of their last 12 games to guarantee at worst a break-even season in the league for the third straight year. More importantly, LSU has put itself in position with possibly two victories in the final four games to secure a bid in the NCAA Tournament. LSU is 15-8 and 8-4 in the Western Division entering the final two weeks of the season.
Alabama, 21-4 overall, is 10-2 in the SEC West and can clinch no worst than a tie for the division championship with a win on Tuesday. LSU has a magic number of two wins or Mississippi State losses to assure LSU a first-round bye in the Southeastern Conference Tournament next month in March.
Besides the national television broadcast, the game will be available on radio on the LSU Sports Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge and Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 102) and online at www.LSUsports.net. Tickets for the game are available online at the LSU web site and during the day Tuesday at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office for $12. Tickets go on sale at the upper concourse ticket windows beginning at 6:30 p.m. Also, bowlers in town for the American Bowling Congress Tournament can purchase up to two tickets for $5 each by showing their membership card on game night.
The Tigers are coming off a week in which they defeated Mississippi State, 79-72, in Starkville and Florida, 77-73, in the Maravich Center Saturday.
“Our team has played well the past couple of games,” said LSU Coach John Brady. “Mississippi State was a good win for us. We have a challenge against Alabama. They are an efficient offensive team. (Kennedy) Winston and (Earnest) Shelton can score at any time. Chuck Davis is probably more of an improved player from his freshman year to this year than any player in the league. It will be a challenge defensively to guard these guys.”
Alabama will have to find a way to stop Brandon Bass who earned his second SEC Player of the Week honor after scoring 48 points and pulling down 22 rebounds this past week. Bass enters the game tied for the second spot in scoring in the league at 17.5 points per game and the leading field goal percentage shooter in the league at 58.3 percent.
All five LSU starters continue to average in double figures as LSU will line up for the 22nd straight game with Tack Minor (10.9 ppg, league leading 5.2 apg), Darrel Mitchell (13.3 ppg) and Antonio Hudson at guards with Bass (17.5 ppg, 8.6 rpg) and Glen Davis (13.2 ppg, 8.7 rpg) at the forwards.
The Tigers will be on the road for two games traveling to Auburn Saturday (3 p.m. JP Sports) and Ole Miss (7 p.m., March 2) before returning home on March 5 for the season finale against Vanderbilt. That game has already been selected by JP Sports as one of their final day wild-card games and has been moved up to 3 p.m. from 7 p.m. the SEC office announced on Monday.