BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball tries to get back on the winning track when the Tigers host the first of two back-to-back Saturday home games against Pac-10 teams when Oregon State comes to the Maravich Assembly Center for a 2 p.m. tilt.
The game will be broadcast on the LSU Sports Radio Network and in the “Geaux Zone” at LSUsports.net. The game will also be regionally televised by CST. Tickets for the game are available online at LSUsports.net and ticket windows will open on the upper concourse of the Maravich Center at 12:30 p.m. Tickets are $11 for adults and $5 for youth (ages 3-12).
The first 500 fans will receive an LSU holiday ornament and “Santa Mike” will be on the concourse taking pictures with fans from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Also the game will be one of the sites where fans can pick up the official, limited edition LSU BCS National Championship game commemorative poster in the Fan Zone. Finally, LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri will be signing autographs in the Walk of Champions at halftime of the game.
Both teams are 6-4 on the season with LSU trying to recover from what was probably its worse performance of the season, a 20-point 67-47 loss at Wichita State on Wednesday. Oregon State won its sixth game on Wednesday night at Gill Coliseum in Corvallis against Northern Colorado, 65-56. The two teams played last year in Corvallis with LSU, a 60-53 winner.
The Tigers aren’t worried about last year, they are worried about finding enough bodies to play the game successfully. Dameon Mason will miss a second straight game because of intersession classes that are held on Saturday afternoons and Bo Spencer is expected to play but possibly be less than full strength after spraining his ankle late in the Wichita game.
“Everybody is a threat to us,” said LSU Coach John Brady, “regardless of what they’ve done to this point. They’ve won some games and played some people close. They’ll rotate 10 players in the game and that’s my biggest concern is the depth they throw at us, the fresh faces they have available. How do we play 40 minutes when they’re throwing people at us? They have some talented players and can match us athlete-for-athlete. Every game is a challenge for us if we don’t concentrate, execute and rebound the ball.”
The word rebound is almost a dirty word for the LSU coaches and players after the last two games when LSU was out rebounded by a combined 33 boards. LSU was outrebounded on Dec. 15 by Northwestern State by 14 boards while against Wichita State on Wednesday, the advantage for the Shockers was 19 rebounds.
The advantage on the offensive boards is more alarming with Northwestern State having 15 more offensive boards in its game with LSU and Wichita posting nine more offensive boards than the Tigers.
Add in LSU’s top two scorers struggling at times to score on Wednesday and a short bench and the recipe for problems is written.
“We don’t have the luxury of someone coming off the bench when Anthony Randolph or Marcus Thornton is not scoring or shooting the ball well like the other night,” said Brady. “We don’t have anyone who can change the game for us and make up those points.”
After the game, the Tigers will take a short Christmas break and resume practice on Dec. 26 in preparation for a Dec. 29 game against another Pac-10 foe, the University of Washington in a game scheduled for 2 p.m. Youth tickets for the game as part of “Take a Kid to the Game” weekend at LSU will be $1.