BATON ROUGE — The LSU Tigers step back on the court for the start of three games in six days as the Centenary Gents come to town for a 7 p.m. game at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center as the second weekend of the LSU Invitational gets underway.
Tickets start at $5 for the game and are available online at LSUsports.net and will be available at the upper concourse windows of the Maravich Center beginning at 3:30 p.m. on Friday. The game will be broadcast on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network and in Baton Rouge on New Country 100.7 FM. There is no television but streaming video is available in the Geaux Zone of LSUsports.net.
The Friday session is a doubleheader as Northwestern State will take on Alcorn State at 4:30 p.m. prior to the LSU-Centenary game.
The Tigers are 3-0 on the season, coming off a 91-60 win over Northwestern State on Sunday. In that game, Marcus Thornton had 25 points and Bo Spencer 10. Chris Bass had six assists, Garrett Temple six steals and Chris Johnson four blocks.
Spencer leads the team in scoring average at 13.0 points per game, Thornton is next at 12.7 and Tasmin Mitchell averaged 12.3 a game.
The Gents are 1-4 for the season after stepping out of the Invitational Monday in a 65-44 loss at Wichita State. Centenary split its two games in the Invitational last week, winning against Troy, 81-77, and losing to Northwestern State, 69-66.
Nick Stallings leads the Gents in scoring at 16.0 points per game, while Chase Adams averages 13.6 points per game and Gary Redus II is at 10.0.
This will be the second time this season the Tigers will put its near 20-year win streak on the line of 68 straight victories against Louisiana schools at the Maravich Center. LSU extended the streak Sunday against Northwestern State and will take the streak past 20-years with a win over the Gents. The streak started on Dec. 8, 1988 and a win would allow LSU to carry it to the next game against a Louisiana school on Dec. 13 against Grambling State.
The Tigers also will play Troy at 6 p.m. on Sunday and then face NCAA Tournament team of 2008, Cal State Fullerton at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the first televised game of the season on FSN.
Coach Trent Johnson has seen improvement in intensity since the Jackson State game and wants to continue the improvement no matter the opposition.
“We’ve improved our intensity I think because we all know the hardest thing for kids in general to do is compete at a high level when they have a feeling that they are bigger, stronger, quicker and better,” Johnson said at this week’s pre-game media session. “One of the things I talk constantly about is respecting competition and being ready to play regardless of who we play, where we play and when we play. For the most part, the improvement from the Jackson State game, in terms of being able to sustain our intensity level, not our effort, is a plus. The good thing about it is we are giving some guys an opportunity to play and get some experience that are new to this level of play. The majority of these guys are new to the system and new to the voice. That has been good and something I think we needed.”
The Invitational continues on Saturday with two more games in which LSU will not play. Following the 1:30 p.m. LSU-Georgia volleyball match, Northwestern State and Troy meet in the 4:30 p.m. game, while Centenary will face Alcorn State at 7 p.m. LSU and Troy conclude the round-robin event on Sunday at 6 p.m.
After Tuesday’s game with Cal Fullerton, the team will take 10-days off from playing for the school’s concentrated study period and final exams. That has been the primary purpose with LSU opening with so many games at home this season.
“From the standpoint that we had a lot of guys on this basketball team that academically, as I mentioned earlier in the year when there were questions addressing our schedule, they need to be here. This is a big two or three weeks for them in the classroom, which is a bigger worry to me as opposed to anything else.”