BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team puts its 5-0 record on the line Tuesday night against a team that advanced to the NCAA Tournament a year ago as Cal State Fullerton comes to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center for a 7 p.m. tipoff.
The game will be televised regionally on FSN and broadcast on the LSU Sports Radio Network (New Country 100.7 FM The Tiger in Baton Rouge). Tickets for the game start at $5 and are available all day Tuesday online at LSUsports.net and beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the upper concourse ticket windows of the Maravich Center.
The Tigers won their fifth game in as many starts Sunday with a strong 92-57 thrashing of the Troy Trojans as the Tigers used a strong defense and a dominating performance on the boards to initiate a lot of offensive transition that led to easy buckets. Marcus Thornton played one of his best overall games at LSU both offensively and defensively as he scored 32 points, his fourth game over 30 points in his two years at LSU.
Bo Spencer had six assists and Garrett Temple became the first player since January 2005 to have 10 assists in a game as LSU recorded an outstanding assist to turnover ratio of 26 assists to just eight turnovers. It was the most assists since 2006 for LSU.
Cal State Fullerton ends a rugged road swing in Baton Rouge that has seen them play five games in 10 days. Fullerton (3-4) snapped a three-game losing streak Sunday with a 92-84 overall win over Charlotte in the 76 Classic in Anaheim, where they earlier lost to tourney champion Wake Forest, 75-69, and fourth-place St. Mary’s, 79-54.
The Titans are led by guard Josh Akognon who averages 24.4 points per game and 1.7 assists. The senior scored 74 points in the 76 Classic. Gerard Anderson is the other starter averaging in double figures, averaging 12.6 points per game and 7.7 rebounds.
LSU is expected to go with the lineup that has gotten through the first five games ? Spencer, Temple and Thornton at guards with Tasmin Mitchell at forward and Chris Johnson at center. Thornton leads the team at 15.8 points per game, while Spencer and Johnson are averaging 11.8 a contest.
LSU Coach Trent Johnson knows that this will be a difficult opponent for the Tigers and after the win over Troy cited the reasons.
“They have good players, for one,” the first-year LSU coach said. “They have a heck of a basketball coach (Bob Burton) and there is a level of toughness to them that you appreciate. They are not going to beat themselves. We are going to have to play well, take care of the ball and really get the shooters. They run a combination of what Troy offensively does, what Memphis does, to penetrate and draw back three- point shooters and they can also play on the half court. It is the right time in terms of our progression.”
LSU will be off following the Cal State Fullerton game for 10 days for concentrated study period and final exam week. The Tigers will next play on Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. when they host Grambling State University.