BATON ROUGE – LSU looks to remain in a tie for the lead in the Southeastern Conference when it hosts No. 15 Texas A&M Saturday at noon in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The game will be televised by CBS with Spero Dedes and Doug Gottlieb on the broadcast, while Jim Hawthorne, Ricky Blanton and host Kevin Ford will handle the broadcast on the LSU Sports Radio Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge).
The game Saturday is a virtual sellout, as the only remaining seats are those held for LSU students who may come to the arena once it opens 90 minutes prior to tipoff and claim their seats with a valid ID on a first-come, first-serve basis. Because of the expected large turnout, students are requested to arrive early to claim their seats.
All gates and the ticket will call box office on the upper concourse will open at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The first 4,000 fans will receive a set of the 2016 LSU basketball trading cards.
LSU is tied for the lead in the SEC at 8-3 with Kentucky and South Carolina. Those two teams meet, starting an hour ahead of LSU-A&M, with the winner obviously going to 9-3. LSU can keep pace with a win entering the final three weeks of the league season. LSU is 15-9 overall.
A&M with a win at 18-6 and 7-4, can move into what could be as much as a four-way tie for second place with a win on Saturday that would also stop a three-game overall losing streak and a four-game SEC losing streak. The only win for the nationally-ranked Aggies during that time was a 72-62 win over No. 14 Iowa State in the Big 12/SEC Challenge.
LSU has not lost consecutive games since it lost the three games away from the Maravich Center in late November. The Tigers are coming off a 94-83 setback in Columbia to South Carolina as LSU gave us scores ot the Gamecocks in 15-of-the-final-17 possessions and four “and 1” fouls in the final 10 minutes. LSU also made just 5-of-14 free throws in the first half of the game.
In the game, Antonio Blakeney made it back-to-back hot scoring games after tossing in 31 against Mississippi State last Saturday, he followed with 22 at Carolina. Ben Simmons had 20 points and six assists while Keith Hornsby added 14 points.
A&M, in its loss to Alabama (63-62) on Wednesday, was led by Jalen Jones with 21 points and seven rebounds. Danuel House had 12 points and Anthony Collins had 11 points and five assist.
The Aggies have won three straight in the series, but LSU continues to have a lead of 17-15 overall and 12-2 in Baton Rouge (4-1 in the Maravich Center). In January, the Aggies defeated the Tigers, 71-57, in College Station. A&M was led by Jones who contributed 20 points. A&M won both meetings a season ago.
Jones leads A&M with a 16.3 point and 7.2 rebound average, while House is at 15.6 points and Tyler Davis at 10.2
Ben Simmons leads LSU at 19.4 points per game, 12.1 rebounds per game and 5.08 assists, while Hornsby is at 13.5 points per game and Craig Victor II at 12.3 a contest.
“We are looking forward to another great challenge on Saturday with Texas A&M, a team that’s certainly shown throughout the year its capabilities and how tough they’ve been,” said LSU Coach Johnny Jones. “They are in the top-20 and won a lot of really good games. They had a tough loss Wednesday at Alabama, and we know they will be prepared and ready when they get here Saturday. We have to make sure that we do a great job in the next couple of days, cleaning up a couple of areas, paying attention to detail and making sure we are taking our scouting report to the floor. If we are able to do those things, we can continue to grow and get better as a team.”
This is the first of two home games for LSU as they will host Alabama next Wednesday night at 8 p.m.
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