BATON ROUGE — The LSU Tigers play their final exhibition game Tuesday night in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center hosting sister school, LSU-Shreveport, at 7 p.m.
The Pilots were a late change after the original schedule was announced which originally had an exhibition contest with Xavier of New Orleans on this date. School officials at Xavier elected not to field intercollegiate athletic teams this school year following Hurricane Katrina and LSU-Shreveport, a fellow NAIA conference member, took this game as well as an exhibition this past Saturday at Arkansas.
Tickets for the game are $5 each and will be available at the upper concourse ticket windows beginning at 5:30 p.m. on game-night. There is no over-the-air radio or television broadcast, but this will be the first LSU basketball game broadcast in an internet only show in the Geaux Zone at LSUsports.net. Jim Hawthorne and Kevin Ford will call the game that features streaming video from the LSU TigerView scoreboard cameras in the arena.
The Tigers are coming off a 74-54 exhibition win over EA Sports on Nov. 10, a game in which LSU trailed at the half, 41-37, before shooting 69 percent in the second half. Glen Davis had 20 points in the game, Darrel Mitchell 17 points, five assists and five steals and Tasmin Mitchell and Tyrus Thomas 13 points each. Tasmin Mitchell had seven assists.
The Pilots are 2-2 overall, 2-0 in counting games this season under third year coach Chad McDowell. LSU-S is the 10th-ranked team in the NAIA poll and did nothing to hurt that ranking with division wins against Southwestern Assemblies of God (118-89) and Paul Quinn College (153-108), a game in which the Shreveport branch of the LSU system broke several school records.
The Pilots will be playing their third straight exhibition game against Division I opponents, having lost to McNeese State, 99-88, on Thursday and 120-79 to Arkansas in Fayetteville Saturday. In the four games, Josh Porter leads LSU-Shreveport, averaging 23.3 point per game, while Fredrico Payne has scored at a 22.8 points per game pace. Porter had 32 against McNeese State and 21 against Arkansas, hitting 13 treys in the two contests combined. LSU-Shreveport has averaged 109.5 points in the first four games, while making 58-of-153 three-pointers (37.9 percent).
LSU-Shreveport is averaging over 26 assists a game and some 15 turnover a game. One good point for the host Tigers in the exhibition opener was that LSU turned the ball over just nine times in the game against EA Sports.
The exhibition game sets the table for the start of the 98th season of men’s basketball and the 35th season of play in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center starting Friday at 7 p.m. against Southern University. The Tigers in that game will put a 52-game regular-season home winning streak against Louisiana schools on the line and an 11-game winning streak at home dating back to last year.
After opening with Southern, LSU quickly returns to action against Nicholls State on Monday, Nov. 21, before going on the road on Nov. 26 at West Virginia. The Mountaineers beat the Tigers last year in Baton Rouge on the way to what would be an Elite 8 finish in the NCAA Tournament.