BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team opens Southeastern Conference play Wednesday night looking to break a three-game losing streak and get off on the right foot when Mississippi State comes to town for a 7 p.m. game at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
There is no television for the conference opener and tickets are on sale all day Wednesday at the LSU Athletics Administration Building and online at www.LSUsports.net.
Tickets, $14 for adults and $5 for youth (ages 3-12), will be on sale at the Maravich Center upper concourse ticket windows beginning at 5:30 p.m.
LSU students get in free with the school ID card and the first 500 students are eligible to win a pair of Crocs and at least 125 pairs will be given away. The winners will be announced at halftime and students must pick the Crocs up after the game.
Also, The Coaches Trophy (the BCS crystal football) that LSU’s football team won for defeating Ohio State in Monday’s Allstate BCS National Championship Game in New Orleans will be on display in the concourse area prior to the game beginning at 5:30 p.m.
The broadcast of the game will be available on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge), in the “Geaux Zone” at LSUsports.net and on the SEC Channels of XM Radio.
The Tigers are 7-7 after losing a home game against Washington and road games to start the 2008 portion of the schedule at Tulane and at Texas A&M. LSU dressed just eight players for the Mississippi State game and the player numbers were in a state of flux going into the conference opener.
Mississippi State comes in on a four-game winning streak and is 9-5 on the season even though State All-SEC forward Charles Rhodes is not expected to dress for a third consecutive games because of a sprained ankle that has kept him out of the last two games.
Whether Rhodes plays or not doesn’t diminish the quality of Rick Stansbury’s team that shared the Western Division title a year ago and went to the semifinals of the NIT.
“They know what the SEC will be like,” said LSU Coach John Brady. “After A&M, Washington and Oregon State, Wichita State and Villanova on the road, we know what we are up against. We’ll just see. Our biggest thing is to just make a few plays. I’m still waiting on Marcus and Terry one night to have real good shooting games and we haven’t had that as a collection yet. Hopefully, here soon they will be able to do that.
“State is good,” Brady said. “I think Charles Rhodes when he is right is as good as any forward in this league. He’s tough and he plays hard. Jamont Gordon is a real load for us to defend. He’s big and plays four positions basically. Those two guys are two of the premier players in the league. When they flank them with two or three really good shooters it makes them a really tough team to guard. They can play big around the goal or they can be a little smaller like we are with really good shooters. They are similar to what they were a year ago.”
This will be the first time the Tigers have opened the SEC season in the Maravich Center since the 2000-01 opener against Alabama. Ironically, that was also the last time the Tigers were battling the numbers issue after two knee injuries limited LSU to just five available scholarship players. In the John Brady era, the Tigers have been on the road seven of the first 10 years with a 3-10 record.
LSU did get some good news when Quintin Thornton returned to practice Monday for the first time since tearing a pectoral muscle and the subsequent surgery early in preseason practice. While Thornton may dress Wednesday, it is thought that his first playing time may not be until Saturday.
“Quintin practiced for the first time in over two months,” Brady said. “We are trying to teach him two or three basic plays. He is going to come out and help us the rest of the year which is good. It speaks a lot of him to play 15 games … I don’t know if he’s play against Mississippi State, I don’t know if he is quite ready for that, but we will certainly use him at Ole Miss, but to play 15 games and give up a junior year because he knows where we are in terms of bodies, I appreciate that. He didn’t have to do that. I wasn’t going to force him to do that. He chose to do that on his own which makes it even better and I appreciate him for that.”
The Tigers are looking to get a home win to start the season because things definitely don’t get any easier on Saturday when LSU must travel to Oxford for a 5 p.m. game at Tad Smith Coliseum with nationally-ranked Ole Miss. That game will be regionally televised on FSN.