BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s basketball team tries to end the regular season on a high note that may give them a first-round bye in next week’s conference tournament when the Tigers host Mississippi State Saturday in an early afternoon tilt at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
It is also Senior Tribute day for LSU players Reed Vial, Randy Onwuasor, Duop Reath and Aaron Epps and ceremonies to honor them will begin at 11:40 a.m. prior to the Noon tip on the SEC Network. The radio broadcast will be available on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network with the Voice of the Tigers Chris Blair and former head coach John Brady (flagship affiliate Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge).
Tickets are available at LSUtix.net and beginning at 10:30 a.m. at the upper concourse ticket windows of the Maravich Center.
The Tigers will be trying for their sixth consecutive win in the Maravich Center and a victory for the Tigers (16-13, 7-10) could move them into a first-round bye in the tournament in St. Louis depending on the outcome of other games. Mississippi State (21-9, 9-8) is still looking to find its spot in the NCAA Tournament and looks to move up from its spot in a tie for sixth with Missouri.
LSU is coming off another SEC game in which it had given itself a chance to get a victory, rallying from 15 down in the final eight minutes to force overtime at South Carolina Wednesday when freshman Tremont Waters was able to hit a long three with 3.7 seconds to go. But LSU scored just two points in overtime and fell to the Gamecocks, 84-73.
Mississippi State is coming in off a loss in its final home game on Tuesday, dropping a 76-54 decision to Tennessee. The Bulldogs had won against Ole Miss, at Texas A&M and South Carolina prior to that loss to Tennessee.
The teams met three times last year – in Baton Rouge, at Starkville and at Nashville – with State taking all three games. This is their only meeting of the regular season, but for the second straight year it is the final game of the regular season.
Coach Will Wade met with the media for a few minutes on Friday afternoon and here are some of his comments:
Opening Statement …
“(Daryl) Edwards, the MRI came back so everything is fine structurally. It was a just a little bone bruise. We just watched film (Thursday), we didn’t do a whole lot physically. We will see today how much he can do, what he can do. Hopefully we will have him. We certainly need him. I think you can see the difference without him at South Carolina, it’s fairly obvious. We need him to be ready to go for us. Moving on, South Carolina we gave ourselves a chance. We just were not able to close it out in overtime like we should have. Give them credit. They made some big shots. We didn’t have the discipline that we needed to have. We are playing Mississippi State. They have won seven out of their last 10 in the league. They are as hot as any team in the league. Guard play is very good with (Nick) Weatherspoon and Tyson Carter is playing well. Their big kid (Abdul) Ado is playing well, protecting the rim. (Aric) Holman is making some threes. They have a versatile lineup. Good team. They are well coached. Tough, physical, hard-nosed, man-to-man defensive team. Their guards do a great job of getting in the paint, driving, and creating offense off the bounce which has been problematic for us.”
On what he saw from Brandon Rachal vs. South Carolina …
“He rebounded well. He has good defensive instincts. We were able to play him at the three, where he is a little bit more comfortable.”
On what he has seen from Wayde Sims the last couple of games …
“He is just playing with a little bit more of an edge. A little bit tougher, a little bit harder, a little bit more of an edge.”
On what he saw from his team offensively in OT against South Carolina …
“We got to the rim, we just didn’t finish. We got in the paint almost every time, four-straight times. We didn’t finish. We got knocked around a little bit. We weren’t sturdy in there.”
On if he can see playmaking ability when recruiting players similar to what Tremont Waters has …
“You don’t know for sure, but you hope. You can tell whether guys want the ball in that moment or want to take those type of shots. I think we knew he certainly had that in him.”
On his past experiences of senior day …
“You have to take the emotion out of it. It’s a little easier when you have guys that everyone likes. Everybody likes these guys. We have good comradery among our group. It will make it a little bit easier to play harder for them and honor them by sending them out. You have the ceremony before the game, but once the ball tips up none of that matters. You have to rise to the occasion and play good basketball just like South Carolina’s two seniors played, (Wesley) Myers and (Frank) Booker did against us Wednesday night.”
On getting hot at home and being cold on the road …
“Just a little bit more consistent. We’ve lost seven in a row on the road. I told them that we are homebodies. We are able to withstand a few more runs at home than we are on the road. We are able to keep our working margins a little bit better at home. We just don’t have that toughness that we need on the road. At home you can cover up some of your deficiencies. Some of it is covered up by the crowd and everything else that is going on. We haven’t been able to do that on the road which has been extremely frustrating. At home we have been better since the Alabama game. We played well against Georgia, we just had some things go wrong in that game. We played well, we had chances to win. We just couldn’t make it happen. Hopefully we will continue to play well.”
On increasing the toughness and physicality of the team …
“Our guys have gotten better. We are not where we were. A lot of times you need that before you get to us. Typically what you want to do is recruit a kid that is very tough and then you want to put in him the basketball I.Q. and the defensive discipline. Or you recruit a kid with an unbelievable basketball I.Q., who is relatively tough and you try to ratchet his toughness up a little bit. That is what we hope we have done in recruiting. I talked earlier that we need some guys with personality. That is part of it too. We need some guys that can help in those ways. Kavell (Bigby-Williams) is going to help defensively. Everybody talks about the recruits and all that, but Kavell is going to be a huge help defensively for us. He can block shots at the rim. He is a presence at the rim. He likes to rebound. When he is revved up and his motor gets going, he is a very good defensive presence for us. If we had him this year, we would have another four or five wins just on him. He can make a huge impact on the game and score six points. He will score more than that hopefully. We don’t have anyone like that. That makes it tough. The recruiting class will help We are going to add another defensive minded kind of junior college kid, or whatever we can find. Someone that has some toughness to him. We have to address that. I can’t sit up here and say all that then then go out and get some soft guys. You have to be about, what you say you’re about. We have to go find those guys. That is on us.”