BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team will find out how much it has improved over the last week when the seventh-ranked Tigers play their final exhibition contest against Louisiana College at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Tickets for the exhibition game are $5 each and can be found at www.LSUsports.net and at the Maravich Center upper ticket windows beginning 90 minutes prior to tipoff.
There will be no live radio or television coverage but subscribers of “The Geaux Zone powered by USAgencies” can watch the scoreboard video coverage as part of their membership plan.
LSU and Louisiana College have actually met 34 times over the history of LSU basketball, but this will be the first meeting since 1995 and the first time LSU has played the game as an allowed exhibition contest against the NAIA school. It will be the first action for Louisiana College, coached by Gene Rushing in his 21st year at the Pineville, La., school.
LSU is coming off a 70-65 win over EA Sports this past Thursday in a game that appeared to be easily in hand with LSU holding a 17-point lead with 12 minutes to play before turnovers and quick missed shots allowed the visitors to get back in the game and have a chance to cut the lead to under five in the final minute.
Glen Davis led LSU with 16 points and 14 rebounds, but half of his points came at the foul line. Dameon Mason in his first live action since transferring from Marquette at the end of the 2004-05 season, added 14 and Darnell Lazare 12. Garrett Temple and Tasmin Mitchell also started for LSU in that exhibition and it is believed that Coach John Brady will go with that lineup again.
One question for the Tigers is the status of forward Magnum Rolle, who fell and injured his back in practice last week. He did not practice Saturday and Sunday and the team had Monday off and his status for the game was listed as questionable.
The Tigers in the first exhibition game, out rebounded EA Sports, 51-38, but did commit 21 turnovers.
There won’t be much time for corrections following this exhibition game as LSU will open the season on Friday night against Nicholls State and then quickly come back on Sunday afternoon to host Louisiana-Monroe.
Both games are at the Maravich Center and Friday’s game will feature the dropping of the 2006 men’s Final Four banner to join the women’s Final Four banner on the upper catwalk of the Maravich Center. Sunday’s game will be regionally televised and all fans bringing a football ticket stub to the ULM game will receive a half-price ticket for $5.