BATON ROUGE — The LSU Tigers step out from the success of the last three games in Southeastern Conference play to take on nationally-ranked Xavier Saturday night at 7 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Tigers will put their 17-game home winning streak (14 this season) against the Musketeers ranked 13th and 15th in the two major college basketball polls. LSU’s win streak is the fourth longest in the 38-years of the Maravich Center and a win will tie for the second longest in building history.
LSU is 15-3 on the season, while Xavier is 16-2 and a perfect 5-0 in the Atlantic 10 Conference. Even more impressive, the Musketeers are 5-0 on opponent’s courts this season.
The LSU Athletics Ticket Office said Friday at the close of business there were 950 tickets remaining to be purchased for Saturday’s game. As always, there are some 3,000 student seats that are available to the LSU student body for free admission by showing their LSU ID card. Tickets can be purchased through the day Saturday online at LSUsports.net and tickets remaining will be available beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the upper ticket windows of the Maravich Center. Tickets start at $11 with $5 youth tickets for ages 3-12.
The game will be televised on ESPN2 and broadcast on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (New Country 100.7 FM The Tiger in Baton Rouge) and in the GeauxZone at LSUsports.net.
The first 2,000 LSU fans will receive rally towels for the contest and there will be a $10,000 progressive shot challenge sponsored by Campus Federal.
This will be the Tigers first game against a ranked opponent this season but LSU is on quite a roll after scoring 85, 83 and 81 points in wins over South Carolina, at Ole Miss and against Mississippi State this past Wednesday. The Tigers have won three straight games since falling in road tests at Alabama and at Utah.
Marcus Thornton had a big night hitting for 31 points, while Tasmin Mitchell scored 24 in a game in which the Tigers out rebounded State by 20, 44-24.
But LSU Coach Trent Johnson knows what a test this will be for the Tigers.
“Xavier is pretty good,” Johnson said. “There is a lot of rich tradition with their basketball program and they have had a nucleus of players over the years. This is a basketball team that is very skilled. Mentally, they are a very tough team and what you would expect from a team that has a lot of postseason experience and tradition. We are going to have to be very good. This is a team that is coming in here where we have to beat them, they will not beat themselves.”
Xavier, under fifth-year head coach Sean Miller, advanced to the NCAA Elite 8, losing in the regional final to UCLA. Derrick Brown is the leading scorer among the starters at 13.8 points per game and he has shot 60 percent from the field in the five A-10 games this year. Guard B. J. Raymond, with a team-high 34 three-pointers, is averaging 11.7 points per game and C. J. Anderson averages 10.8 points.
LSU will again go with the same lineup for the 19th straight game with Thornton averaging 18.3 points per game, Mitchell 13.3 points, Bo Spencer 12.0 with Chris Johnson at 7.8 points and Garrett Temple 7.3 points.