BATON ROUGE – The Southeastern Conference on Wednesday evening announced its 126-game men’s basketball schedule and in conjunction the LSU Athletics Department announced the complete schedule for the LSU Men’s Basketball team for the 2015-16 season.
Coach Johnny Jones‘ Tigers are completing a five-game exhibition tour in Australia with games this Thursday and Saturday against Melbourne United before returning to Baton Rouge on Sunday evening.
LSU’s regular-season schedule will feature 18 home games, a two-game previously-announced tournament appearance at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, and SEC home-and-away games with Kentucky and Florida in addition to three league opponents that will be on LSU’s schedule twice annually: Alabama, Arkansas and Texas A&M.
The non-conference schedule features a third-straight appearance on the ESPN 24-hour College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon, a home game against NCAA Sweet 16 participant Oklahoma in the SEC-Big 12 Challenge, and the start of home-and-home series against ACC opponent Wake Forest in the Maravich Center and at Houston’s Hofheinz Pavilion.
2015 LSU Men’s Basketball Schedule
The LSU schedule features 12 teams that played in one of the postseason tournament this past year, including eight of the SEC schools.
“We are excited with the upcoming season,” said coach Jones about the schedule. “We have a very tough non-conference schedule to go with our always challenging SEC schedule. When you look at the returning players in our league, the teams represented by top recruiting classes, coupled with five teams last season making the NCAA Tournament and others taking part in postseason play, this schedule will be very entertaining for our fans. We look forward to taking what we learned about our team here in Australia and we embrace the task ahead.”
The Tigers won 22 games last season and appeared in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009. In his first three years, Jones won 61 games including 29 league games – the most by any LSU head coach in their first three years at LSU. He also is the first LSU coach to take a team to postseason play twice in their first three seasons as head coach, with three NBA draft picks combined in the past two seasons.
LSU posted the No. 3 ranked recruiting class in the final rankings by 24/7 Sports and ESPN, the highest ranked recruiting class for LSU since 2004. Nine of the players in the top 35 will play in the SEC this season, including LSU’s Ben Simmons, who is ranked the No. 1 player in the class and Antonio Blakeney who was ranked 15th nationally.
Complete SEC Men’s Basketball League Schedule
All SEC basketball games will be broadcast nation-wide. The SEC Network will televise 71 games, ESPN or ESPN2 will televise 31 contests, ESPNU 18 and CBS six.
LSU will appear three times on CBS this season, including a home game with Texas A&M on Feb. 13. The Tigers will have a minimum of 19 appearances on one of the ESPN Family of Networks (ESPN/2/U/SEC).
Non-conference network assignments will be made at a later date.
The Tigers will open the regular season on Friday, Nov. 13, on the eve of the LSU-Arkansas football game with McNeese State. Information on tickets for the 2015-16 season can be found at www.LSUtix.net or through the LSU Athletics Ticket Office.
All games included in the ESPN package (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and SEC Network) will be available through WatchESPN, accessible online at WatchESPN.com, in smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPNapp, and streamed on televisions through Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360 or Xbox One to fans who receive their video subscription from an affiliated provider. Each of the CBS games will be streamed on CBSSports.com, the CBS Sports mobile app and mobile website.
Follow updates on LSU men’s basketball on Twitter @LSUBasketball and on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/LSUBasketball.
2015-16 LSU MEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE
(Some dates and times to be announced for non-conference games)
NOVEMBER
Fri. 6/SOUTHWEST BAPTIST/TBA (Exhibition)
Fri. 13/MCNEESE STATE/TBA
Mon. 16/KENNESAW STATE/8 p.m. (ESPNU)(Tip-Off Marathon/Legends Classic Reg. Rd.)
Thurs. 19/SOUTH ALABAMA/TBA (Legends Classic Reg. Rd.)
Mon. 23/vs. Marquette (at Brooklyn, N.Y.)/6 p.m. (ESPN2)(Legends Classic Championship Rd.)
Tues. 24/Arizona State or NC State (at Brooklyn, N.Y.)/TBA (ESPN2/U)(Legends Classic Championship Rd.)
Mon. 30/at College of Charleston/TBA
DECEMBER
Wed. 2/NORTH FLORIDA/TBA
Sun. 13/at Houston/TBA
Wed. 16/GARDNER-WEBB/TBA
Sat. 19/ORAL ROBERTS/TBA
Tues. 22/AMERICAN/TBA
Tues. 29/WAKE FOREST/TBA
JANUARY
*Sat. 2/at Vanderbilt/8 p.m. (ESPN2)
*Tues. 5/KENTUCKY/8 p.m. (ESPN)
*Sat. 9/at Florida/12:30 or 3:30 p.m. (CBS)
*Wed. 13/OLE MISS/8 p.m. (ESPN2)
*Sat. 16/ARKANSAS/7:30 p.m. (SEC Network)
*Tues. 19/at Texas A&M/8 p.m. (ESPN)
*Sat. 23/at Alabama/1 p.m. (ESPNU)
*Tues. 26/GEORGIA/8 p.m. (ESPN/U)
Sat. 30/OKLAHOMA/TBA (ESPN/2/U) (SEC-Big 12 Challenge)
FEBRUARY
*Tues. 2/at Auburn/6 p.m. (ESPN/U/SEC Network)
*Sat. 6/MISSISSIPPI STATE/5 p.m. (ESPN2)
*Wed. 10/at South Carolina/6 p.m. (ESPN2)
*Sat. 13/TEXAS A&M/Noon (CBS)
*Wed. 17/ALABAMA/8 p.m. (SEC Network)
*Sat. 20/at Tennessee/4:30 p.m. (ESPNU)
*Tues. 23/at Arkansas/6 p.m. (ESPN/U/SEC Network)
*Sat. 27/FLORIDA/TBA (ESPN/2)
MARCH
*Tues. 1/MISSOURI/8 p.m. (SEC Network)
*Sat. 5/at Kentucky/1 p.m. (CBS)
Wed.-Sun. 9-13/SEC Tournament (Nashville, Tenn.)/TBA (SEC Network, ESPN)
* SEC opponent Home Games in ALL CAPS…Times available in Central Time