HOUSTON — The LSU Tigers take their 8-0 record away from the Pete Maravich Assembly Center for the first time here Saturday when they take on the 9-1 Texas A&M Aggies in the second game of the H-Town Holiday Shootout at the Toyota Center.
Tickets remain on sale at the Toyota Center and HoustonToyotaCenter.com for the doubleheader that opens with a regionally-televised 1 p.m. game between Texas and Michigan State on CBS. The LSU-Texas A&M game will not be televised but will be available on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network.
Promoters of the game have announced that there will be as much as one hour between games of the doubleheader but the tip time will be scheduled as close to 4 p.m. for the LSU-Texas A&M game as possible.
The Tigers won their 11th consecutive game at home dating back to last year and their 71st straight at the Maravich Center against Louisiana schools in a 68-56 win over Nicholls State Wednesday in Baton Rouge. The Tigers trailed the Colonels by three at the half and seven once in each half before the Tigers were able to get going by pounding the ball inside to Tasmin Mitchell who scored 16 of his game-high 19 points in the second half. In the process, he became the 37th player in LSU history to score 1,000 career points.
Not only is there the test of playing on the road for the first time, but the meeting against a strong A&M squad that Coach Trent Johnson feels should be ranked in the national polls.
“Obviously, this is a basketball team that is tough,” Johnson said at Thursday’s media session. “They have a level of toughness, mentally and physically. Pretty much the nucleus of this basketball team is NCAA Championship-level tested. You have to be impressed with their physicality.
“This is a good game for us at this time of year,” the first-year LSU Coach said. “It should be fun. Regardless of what happens, we still need to get back on the bus, come back and get ready to play another game or two. It’s not going to make our season. It’s not going to break our season. It’s another game, and we need to approach it like we approach all of our other games and understand that if we execute and compete at a high level, which (the Tigers) are going to have to from start to finish because (A&M) is a team that’s not going to go away. If we get behind, we are going to have to really dig to give ourselves a chance. From that standpoint, it should be fun.”
The teams have played over the course of the last three seasons, including a home-and-home set. LSU’s Darrel Mitchell hit a three-pointer in the waning seconds of the NCAA second round game in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2006 that sent LSU to the regional round of the NCAA Tournament in Atlanta and in December of 2006, the Tigers knocked off the Aggies, 64-52, before last season’s game in College Station in which Texas A&M easily handled a short-handed LSU team, 79-53.
In that game, LSU dressed only eight players as center Chris Johnson had broken a bone in his hand the game before and Tasmin Mitchell was out after surgery on his ankle.
LSU will go with its lineup that started the first eight games of guards Bo Spencer, Marcus Thornton and Garrett Temple along with forward Mitchell and center Johnson. Thornton has scored in double figures the last four games and leads the team in scoring at 17.3 points per game.
A&M’s leading scorer is Josh Carter, a senior from Dallas at 14.5 points per game. Also checking in for the Aggies in double figures are Donald Sloan at 12.5 a contest and Bryan Davis at 10.7 points a game.
LSU is 8-0 on the year for the first time since the 2003-04 season. The last time LSU won its first nine games of the year was the 1999-2000 team that won its first 13 games.
Following the one game away from the PMAC, the Tigers come back home for four more games around Christmas and New Year’s starting Monday night at 7 p.m. when McNeese State comes to the Maravich Center. Tickets are available online at LSUsports.net.