MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The LSU men’s basketball team Friday practiced for approximately an hour and 45 minutes at WVU Coliseum in preparation for Saturday’s contest against No. 13 West Virginia.
The Tigers and Mountaineers tip off just before 3:45 p.m. before what has been announced as a sell-out and what is believed will be the first crowd of 10,000-plus that has seen a November basketball game in the 35-year-old WVU Coliseum. The game will be available in the Big East area ESPN Regional and Fox Sports Pittsburgh, and on the ESPN Full Court pay-per-view package. The radio broadcast will be available on the LSU Sports Radio Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and in the “Geaux Zone” at LSUsports.net.
Adding to the hype for the game is the retirement ceremony scheduled for halftime of former West Virginia star and Los Angeles Laker Jerry West. This will be the first basketball number retired at the University of West Virginia.
LSU is 2-0 after easy wins over Southern and Nicholls State, but this will be the first time the young LSU newcomers have played in the road atmosphere of such a place. Only Glen Davis, Darnell Lazare and Darrel Mitchell have experienced the road atmosphere in venues around the SEC to equate with what they will experience in LSU’s first visit to a Big East conference arena in close to 20 years.
“We’re never faced any real adversity yet,” said LSU coach John Brady. “We’re where we need to be, but is that good enough to go into West Virginia? We’ll see. But it will be a great time to play them to see where we are. Win or lose the game, there will be something positive we can draw from playing in that environment.”
The nationally-ranked Mountaineers are 2-2 on the season, all in the Guardians Classic, beating Louisiana-Monroe and Wofford in the opening round at WVU Coliseum, before losing to Texas and Kentucky in the Guardians Classic Final Four in Kansas City. Against Texas, the Mountaineers lost by one point, having a layup blocked in the final seconds of the game.
This is the second year of a home and home series with West Virginia. One year ago, the Mountaineers came in and stopped LSU’s 56-game home regular season non-conference winning streak with an 84-69 victory. In that game, Patrick Beilein, the son of West Virginia coach John Beilein came off the bench to hit six three-pointers to spark the Mountaineers to the win.
LSU will go with the same lineup that started the first two games with senior Darrel Mitchell and red shirt freshman Garrett Temple at the guards with freshman Tasmin Mitchell, junior Darnell Lazare and sophomore Glen Davis at the forward positions. West Virginia is led by center Kevin Pittsnogle, averaging 18.5 points a game and senior forward Mike Gansey, who comes in averaging 17.3 points a contest.
The Tigers return home for an 8 p.m. contest at the Maravich Assembly Center against Houston. There is a “Two for Tuesday” ticket option available at LSUsports.net for the game in which people can buy two tickets for the price of one online.