CORVALLIS, Ore. — The 12th-ranked LSU men’s basketball team looks to get back on the winning track when it faces Oregon State here Sunday night at Ralph Miller Court/Gill Coliseum in the first of back-to-back road games against Pac-10 opponents.
The Tigers and Beavers game begins at 7 p.m. CST (5 p.m. PST) with the game nationally televised on FSN as part of its “Sunday Night Hoops” package.
The game will also be available on the LSU Sports Radio Network and on the Internet at www.LSUsports.net in the “Geaux Zone powered by USAgencies.”
LSU (5-2) will be playing its first game since its overtime 76-75 loss to Texas one Sunday ago and looking to avoid its first two-game losing streak since the end of December last season when LSU lost to Cincinnati on a neutral court and then lost to Ohio State in games 10 and 11 of the season.
Oregon State is 6-4 on the year and this will be the fourth game of nine straight at home for the Beavers, who do not leave home during the month of November. They started the set of games losing to Fresno State (69-74), before beating Bethune-Cookman (72-49) and Western Oregon (71-58). The Beavers’ Marcel Jones had 20 points and 10 rebounds in the B-C win, but OSU struggled a bit against Western Oregon, a Division II school, only shooting
38.1 percent from the floor. Sasa Cuic scored a team-high 17 for the Beavers in that game.
“They have a very experience front line back this season,” LSU Coach John Brady said of OSU. “They had some ups and downs so far, but I know they are going to be ready to play us. I hear hey are treating this game like an NCAA Tournament game and are close to selling it out. We understand we are going to get their best shot because teams are excited to play LSU these days and rightfully so.
“Anytime you are on the road,” Brady said, “if you don’t prepare yourself mentally to play than anything can happen. I am sure having LSU coming into their building is going to motivate them to play their best. We have to be mentally ready to play or things are not going to go our way.”
LSU got Dameon Mason back for Friday’s practice and he made the trip and took part in the Saturday morning workout after sitting out practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with severe migraine headaches.
The news was not as good on another front as it appears that Terry Martin will not begin his LSU career until Wednesday at Washington as he was still in Baton Rouge when the team practiced here Saturday, waiting for grades to be posted and certified so he could fly to the Pacific Northwest to join the team. That is now expected to happen on Monday.
Reserve guard Ben Voogd had the chance to see a lot of familiar faces outside the 56-year old Coliseum when the LSU bus drove up Saturday morning as members of his old high school team, his coach and family members watched the practice. Voogd is from Florence, Ore., about three hours from Corvallis.
Coach Brady earlier in the week discussed Voogd and his coming to LSU.
“Ben had never been away from his family for more than a three-day stretch before he came here. He came to South Louisiana which is a very different lifestyle. He has handled it well and adjusted to it nicely. I am pulling for him to play well when we go to his home state.”
This will be the fifth time these two teams have met but the first since December 2000 when LSU was a 78-68 winner over the Beavers in the old Nokia Sugar Bowl Classic. LSU has won the last three meetings, with OSU’s win coming in the first meeting in the Far West Classic in Portland, 87-57, in 1963 when Mel Counts, whose number hangs from the Gill Coliseum rafters along with Gary Payton, A. C. Green and Steve Johnson, scored 48 points.
The teams played a home-and-home series in December 1969 and in the last time the Tigers were in this building, Pete Maravich set single game free throw records for makes, attempts and consecutive makes when he made 30-of-31 free throws, including 21 straight, in LSU’s 76-68 victory.
NOTES: The team arrived in Corvallis at about 9 p.m. PST Friday night after an all-day travel run that included a close to two-hour flight delay in Baton Rouge from all the fog earlier in the day … Even some parts of Corvallis remained in the dark as the Tiger bus came through the outer edge of town on the team’s drive to the city from the Portland airport … Oregon State is the nation’s 13th-winning program … Two coaches — Amory “Slats” Gill (1929-64) and Ralph Miller (1971-89) — have combined for a total of 958 wins at OSU with both members of the Naismith Hall of Fame … Miller won 674 total games at Wichita State and Iowa before going to Oregon State … LSU is 14-22 overall against Pac-10 schools … The Tigers are 46-12 in the Brady era in the month of November … LSU is 14-2 when playing as the 12th-ranked team in the Associated Press poll … LSU has had good success this year at the free throw line, hitting 110-of-148 or 74.3 percent … Opponents are hitting 72.8 percent, but have only made 75-of-103 attempts, with LSU making seven more free throws than opponents have attempted.