BATON ROUGE – The No. 22 LSU Tigers conclude a four-game season opening homestand Friday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center against Louisiana Tech.
The game is set to tip at 7 p.m. CT.
Tickets are available online at LSUtix.net and all day Friday at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office. Ticket sales at the upper ticket windows of the Maravich Center will start at 5:30 p.m. LSU students are admitted free to the game with a valid student ID.
The game will be broadcast at www.LSUsports.net/live, and on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Eagle 98.1 FM) with the “Voice of the Tigers” Chris Blair and former LSU basketball coach John Brady. The game will be video streamed on SEC Network+ and the ESPN App with Lyn Rollins and Victor Howell on the call.
The Tigers will be looking to go 4-0 on the season for the first time since the first four games of the 2012-13 season. LSU started the last three campaigns 3-0 but was unable to get the fourth consecutive win. LSU will also be trying to push its present home winning streak to 11 games dating back to last year.
Louisiana Tech is 3-0 this year with home wins over Sam Houston State and Harding and a season opening, 71-58, win at Wichita State. Tech defeated Harding on Tuesday, 89-58, dominating the game on the boards, 46-23, and outscoring Harding in the paint, 54-16. Mubarak Muhammed led Tech with 17 points and eight rebounds (six offensive).
LSU put five players in double figures for the second time in three games in an 85-76 win over Memphis. Skylar Mays led LSU with 19 points, while Emmitt Williams had his second double in three games with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Ja’vonte Smart has scored in double figures in all three games and had 13 points against Memphis.
Five Louisiana Tech Bulldogs are averaging in double figures led by DaQuan Bracey who scored 16 in the season opener at Wichita State. He missed the two home games because of an ankle injury.
LSU has six players in double figures through the first three games led by freshman Naz Reid at 19.0 points per game. Mays is averaging 13.0 points per game and Tremont Waters 12.7 markers a contest.
The Tigers will be looking for more good numbers from senior transfer Kavell Bigby-Williams who hit all seven of his field goal attempts in 17 minutes to score 14 against Memphis.
But it has been the freshman leading the scoring march for the Tigers with the frosh scoring 54.3 percent of LSU’s output so far in three games (150-of-276).
Following the Friday game, LSU will next be in action on Thanksgiving evening in Orlando in the first round of the AdvoCare Invitational against Charleston.
—
Coach Wade met with the media on Thursday regarding Friday night’s game and here are some of his comments:
Opening statement…
“We’ve got to move on to Louisiana Tech. Good team. They won at Wichita State. Sometimes when you pull the upsets in those type of games, it’s because somebody comes in and nails a bunch of threes or something crazy happens. Louisiana Tech just beat Wichita. They were up the whole game. It was comfortable. They didn’t have anybody that had an out of body experience, hitting a bunch of threes. It was just a total takedown. They were more physical. They rebounded well. They guarded well. I thought it says a lot about Louisiana Tech and the program, how they went into Wichita and won in such a tough environment.
“Couple keys to the game. We’re going to have to guard them without fouling. They score a ton of points from the free-throw line. They’ve made 58 free-throws on the year and their opponents have attempted 57. They’ve made more on the year than their opponents have attempted. A little bit more than a third of their scoring is from the free-throw line. They’re top-10 in the country in fouled percentage so that’s something we’ve got to a god job on. They do a great job on the offensive glass. They have a bunch of bigs who crash the glass hard. Their guards are tough. They’ve got really good guard. That kid, (Daquan) Bracey from Baltimore, he’s been out, but we expect him to be playing. He’s a really good guard. (Amorie) Archibald was sixth or seventh in the country last year in assist rate, which was really good. They’ve got a good program. Good team. Coach (Eric) Konkel has done a really good job. It will be another big challenge for us tomorrow night at the PMAC. Hopefully we’ll have a great crowd. Our team feeds off the crowds. I think the crowds have been great and hopefully we’ll be able to pack it tomorrow night on a Friday night.”
On what he likes most about how the Tigers are performing offensively…
“We’ve got to have a little bit better rhythm to what we’re doing. I think it was a little bit clunky at times. Our spacing gets a little bit poor and we try to sit around and wait for other guys to make plays instead of sit around and move and get to the open spots. We scored 85 points the other night (against Memphis) without two of our better guys scoring a bunch. I’m not nearly as worried about our offensive as I am some of our defensive issues. We’re going to continue to work on the defensive issues and attack those issues. If we can keep our turnovers down, we’ve turned it over a little bit too much the last couple of games. Those teams pressed. Louisiana Tech presses. We’ll see a diamond press, 2-2-1 press and mix in some 1-3-1. We’re going to need to handle the ball a little better to, at least give ourselves a better chance to get a shot up on the backboard.”
On what needs to be improved upon defensively…
“I don’t think it’s our guys don’t prioritize it. It’s just, good team defense requires five people on the same page, five people communication. We’ve had some breakdowns. Like I told the guys yesterday in film, if you make a mistake once we can live with that, but if you keep making the same mistake over and over and over again then I’m the fool for thinking you’re going to fix it. If it isn’t fixed then we can fix it with the bench. We’ve got to get a little bit better on that end of the court, specifically our transition defense. At this point, if you’ve got a team that just sprints to the rim, you don’t even need to run a play against us. You can just live in transition. We’ve got to get better there and I think our ball screen defense is coming. I think we’ll get better with our ball screen defense.”
On how much the ball screen defense has improved…
“It’s improved. Now we’ve just had issues with these pick-and-pop fours. Louisiana Tech has two pick-and-pop fours who are very good. If we don’t cover them up better than what we’ve been, they’ll have a career night from three. We’ve had three straight teams (where a player) has six or more threes on us. That’s hard to do. If we don’t get that fixed and we just give away a free 18-points every game from the three-point line, it will be tough for us to win games. It’s going to catch us to us at some point. It will catch up to us tomorrow if we don’t figure it out with how good Louisiana Tech is. If we can’t get better in these areas, it’s going to catch up to us a we’re not going to be learning from wins here before long.”
On how he breaks the season down…
“We have these four home games. We haven’t started 4-0 since 2012. Six years, we haven’t started 4-0. This will be the first part, then you go into the tournament play. You’ve got the part around exams. This would be the first part, if we could finish this out strong. We want to play to our standards. We break it down by that and how we play each game. Do we get better each game? …”
On in-state scheduling…
“… I was amazed to find out this is only the 12th meeting between us and Louisiana Tech and I think it’s the only second or third time since the 40’s. I’ve known Coach Konkol since he was at Miami as an assistant and I know their ops guys really well, Andy Fox, who was at Tulane. Just made sense to set up. They’ve got a good RPI. They win a bunch of games. They had some kids inured last year. That’s why the only won 17 games last year, but they’ll be a 20-plus win team this year. They’re in-state and it just makes sense. If it’s an in-state team and it makes sense, we have no problem scheduling you.”
On Kavell Bigby-Williams‘ performance Tuesday against Memphis (14 Pts, 4 Rec, 1 Ast, 1 Blk)…
“He did that in one of our scrimmages. He had 19 (points) and six (rebounds) in one of our scrimmages. Did the same type of thing. He’s a good player. The little lefty jump-hook off the cross screen when it (our lead) got down to two points, he was able to put that in and give us a four-point lead. He does a good job. He brings great energy. He’s an elite level shot blocker. I like what he brings. Like I told him, he probably won’t go 7-7 tomorrow night, but just keep bringing the energy and doing what you do. Good things are going to happen. Really, really pleased in him and how he responded after a tough outing against Greensboro.”
On where he wants to see Bigby-Williams’ rebounding improve…
“The number are a little bit misleading. He had one in the first half (against Memphis) and the ball hit his hand and it went out of bounds. He’s just got to grab a few more of them. We work on that every day with his hands. He had four or five in the Southeastern game that were in his hands and slipped. He’s just got to grab the ball. He’s in position to get them. He’s got to get them. I think he’ll continue to get better, but he’s rusty. He’s had a year off. He hasn’t played in live games in a year. I thought he did a great job of keeping the ball high. He did a great job of tipping balls on the offensive glass on Tuesday night. He’s going to continue to improve and continue to help us.”
On how they plan for LA Tech when Daquan Bracey is coming back from an injury…
“We’re going to prepare like he’s going to play. He had 16 at Wichita. He’s a big game player. He’s from Baltimore. He’s got that toughness to him. I’m not a doctor, but I was watching film and he was in a boot for the Sam Houston game. He wasn’t in a boot for the Harding game so I assume if he keeps progressing like that they’ll do everything they can to get him on the floor.”
On how much he feels he has a handle on who this team is…
“We’re still working on it. We’re going to evolve throughout the year. Good teams always evolve throughout the season. I think we’ve got a pretty good handle on who we are right now. That doesn’t necessarily mean we like everything about who we are right now. We know who we are. You talk about the season being segmented, we’ve been in game-prep mode the last two weeks. We really need to prepare well and find a way to win this game tomorrow night which is going to be a tough, tough game. We’ve got a little bit of time next week to work on ourselves and recalibrate some things that we need to heading into the tournament. We’ve got a game when we get back then we’ve got another week to 10 days off over the exam break. We haven’t had time to work on ourselves. We’ve just been preparing on other teams. I’m really looking forward to getting through the next couple days and being able to work on ourselves going into the tournament in Orlando and being able to work on ourselves again. Like I said, we’ve got a tall task ahead of us tomorrow night in Louisiana Tech before we can get to that.”
On how Ja’vonte Smart has looked through his first three collegiate games…
“He’s done great. He looks like a veteran out there. You wouldn’t know he was a freshman unless you look down and see that next to his name. I’ve always thought that by Christmas your freshmen and JUCO guys, you know by then whether they can help you or they can’t. If they haven’t shown you much by that holiday break, they probably don’t have it. Obviously that’s not the case with Ja’vonte and all of our guys who have been playing. They’ve got it. They’re going to be able to help as and they’re going to continue to grow and get better throughout the year. I really thought that Memphis game Ja’vonte was getting ready to go off. He scored those eight points real quick then he picked up those fouls in the first half. He’s going to have some games where he goes 25-30 points. I thought he was getting ready to have one of those nights and then the foul trouble broke his rhythm a little bit. He’s been very steady for us and I’m very pleased and proud of what he’s done so far. It’s not easy to do. He’s got a lot of pressure on him staying in town. People are very aware of him and what he’s done in high school. He’s really done a nice job handling everything.”
On Naz Reid‘s game…
“He just lets the game come to him. That’s just how he is. That’s more of his personality. Just let the game come. He’s not going to force things. That’s one of the great things about him is he just plays within what we do. He’s got a good feel and good way about him.”
On what he thinks of Daryl Edwards so far…
“Daryl has been a little banged up. I feel like he’s getting ready to play really, really well. Hopefully it will be tomorrow night. I feel like he’s right there and ready to play very, very well. He’s preparing the right way and doing what he need to do. He’s going to show up on the court. He’s one of the guys you trust. He’s been here awhile compared to a lot of them. It’s going to come together for him.”
On the signings of James Bishop and Charles Manning…
“The one thing I love about Manning, I’ve seen him play six times and a couple practices, he’s the hardest playing guy every time you watch him play. No question who the hardest playing guy is on the court every time you see him play and I love that. Bishop is just an elite, elite, elite scorer. He reminds me a lot of a guard version of Darius Days. He really knows how to play, really knows what he’s doing, really knows how to move. He’s going to score a ton of points for LSU. I can assure you of that. I love his mentality. I love everything about him. He’s just a blue-collar, throwback, city guard. I asked him the other night if he was doing a signing ceremony at his school. No, no coach. I’m just going to sign it. My mom will sign it and we’ll email it to you. That never happens in today. Shows how mature he is. Manning is the same way. He’s just a worker. Extremely, extremely, extremely hard worker. Just plays so hard. He’s versatile and will be a good player. I’m very excited about both of them and hopefully we’ll add to it.”
On something that nobody is paying attention to that he is…
“We’ve given up zero free-throw offensive rebounds so far. We’ve put a lot of time and we’ve been working on it. We’ve given up zero free-throw offensive rebounds, that’s a game within a game. Now, we had some poor block outs the other night and we’re lucky that Memphis made a couple of free-throws. I addressed that with our big guys earlier today. I’m pretty pleased with that. We didn’t give one up in our scrimmages either.”