CONWAY, S.C. – The LSU men’s basketball team left Monday for a week in the state of South Carolina, starting with a Tuesday night game on the campus of Coastal Carolina University.
The Tigers and Chanticleers play the back half of a home-and-home game Tuesday at 6 p.m. CST at Kimbel Arena (capacity 1,039) to start a four-game in six day road trip for LSU that will see them play Thursday, Friday and Sunday in the Charleston Classic some two hours away in Charleston, S.C.
There will be no television for Tuesday’s game but the game will be broadcast on the LSU Sports Radio Network (New Country 100.7 FM The Tiger in Baton Rouge) and in the Geaux Zone at LSUsports.net.
LSU opened its 2011-12 basketball season on Saturday afternoon with a convincing 96-74 win over Nicholls State University as seven LSU players scored in double figures. It was the first time LSU had seven score in double digits since the opening game of the 1997-98 season when the Tigers had seven in double numbers in a win against Southern-New Orleans.
Included in that seven were all three freshmen (Anthony Hickey, Johnny O’Bryant III, John Isaac) and transfer Justin Hamilton, who was playing his first game since coming to LSU from Iowa State prior to the 2010-11 season.
For Coach Trent Johnson, he thought his young players were almost too ready to go.
“I thought the group was ready to go around 8 a.m.,” said Johnson. “There was a time when I thought I might need to slow them down. The game is at 12 and they are shooting shots around 9 a.m. But that is what you want and expect. I think most of them handled it well. I think Anthony (Hickey’s) on-the-court demeanor is really good. He communicates well with me. You can talk to him and he has a pretty good feel on what is going on. As for John (Isaac), I think he has a chance to be a very good defender. He is never afraid to take the shot, and he is never afraid to guard somebody, which is a plus.”
Hickey scored a team high 14 points in the first start by a freshman at point guard in the opening game since Torris Bright in the 1999-2000 season. O’Bryant III scored 12 points with a team best eight rebounds and Isaac had 13. Add in Hamilton’s 11 points and the quartet posted 50 of LSU’s 96 points with 18 rebounds, 13 assists, two blocks and four steals.
Coastal Carolina, coached by veteran mentor Cliff Ellis, is 2-0 on the year after easy wins over Division III opponents – 96-54 versus Covenant on Friday and 104-61 over Methodist on Saturday. Coastal shot over 55 percent from the field for the two games and had a combined rebound edge of 100-51 in the two games. Anthony Raffa had 17 points in both games and former Louisiana-Lafayette player Chris Gradnigo had 23 in the second win to lead the Chanticleers.
Last year in Baton Rouge in December 2010, Coastal Carolina rallied from a five-point halftime deficit to score a 78-69 overtime win over the Tigers at the Maravich Center. Andre Stringer led LSU with 16 points, while Ralston Turner scored 15. In the overtime, CC hit 4-of-6 field goals, including two treys, while LSU was just 2-of-8 from the field and 1-of-5 from the arc.
Coach Johnson hopes he has found a scoring punch from this year’s team as it cracked 90 points for the first time since his first season at LSU (2008-09).
“The impact the three freshmen has as well as the other returnees, in terms of being a cohesive unit, was very impressive,” Johnson said. “Anytime you have seven guys in double figures and have assist-to-turnover ratio where you have 20 and nine and out rebound a team the way we did (41-29), I think it’s good for this basketball team. Now we get ready to play a very good Coastal Carolina team.”
Following the game Tuesday, the team will bus to Charleston for the Charleston Classic, one of several tournaments owned and put on by ESPN Regional Television. LSU will have a workout session at TD Arena on Wednesday and then play the second game of the tournament on Thursday against Northwestern (3 p.m. EST, ESPNU). LSU will play either Tulsa or Western Kentucky on Friday (1 or 3:30 p.m. EST).
The eight-team event will take off Saturday and depending on what LSU does in the first two games will play Georgia Tech, Seton Hall, VCU or St. Joseph’s in the final round on Sunday.
The Tigers return home on Wednesday, Nov. 23, to take on South Alabama at 7 p.m. in the Maravich Center. Pick 3 and Pick 5 mini-plans, single game non-conference tickets and group plan tickets are on sale now at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office and at LSUtix.net.
Fans can follow the Tigers on this week’s South Carolina journey on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/LSUBasketball and on Twitter @LSUbasketball and @LSUCoachJohnson.
The LSU Basketball Facebook page passed 10,000 followers prior to the season opener with Nicholls and the LSU Basketball Twitter account has 2,370 followers, while Coach Johnson’s account presently lists 2,783 followers.