BATON ROUGE – Off a much-needed win on Wednesday night, the LSU men’s basketball team looks to keep the momentum rolling Saturday night when the Tigers travel to Oxford to take on the Ole Miss Rebels.
Game time is set for 7:30 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Guaranty Media flagship affiliate Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) with the Voice of the Tigers Chris Blair and former LSU head coach John Brady. Paul Sunderland and Joe Kleine will call the game on the SEC Network television broadcast.
News broke Friday morning in Oxford that the school and Ole Miss head coach Kermit Davis have mutually agreed to part ways effective immediately so assistant coach Win Case will coach the team the rest of the season. Case has had much success as a head coach on the NAIA level with 392 wins in 15 seasons before joining Davis first at Middle Tennessee State and then at Ole Miss.
The Rebels are 10-18 and 2-13 in the SEC after a 78-74 loss on Wednesday at Auburn. Murrell Mathew led Ole Miss with 23 points, while Myles Burns added 14 and James White 13. Ole Miss out rebounded Auburn, 38-28.
LSU stopped its losing streak on Wednesday night, 84-77, against Vanderbilt as the Tigers were able to put together a complete game on both ends of the floor and able to stay the course when the Commodores rallied in the second half.
KJ Williams equaled his LSU season high, the second highest of his five-ear college career, with 35 points on 13-of-25 shooting with five three-pointers. Adam Miller added 18 points.
After the game, Coach Matt McMahon felt like the process he was looking for shown through in the that game and he hopes that the preparation on gameday will continue on Saturday.
“I thought our guys played with great energy,” Coach McMahon said. “I thought we had a really good shoot around that carried over into tonight. I Really felt like we had a team out there (Wednesday) and it was a lot of fun to watch. The guys were really locked in to do the things we needed to do to have success. Obviously, KJ (Williams), his performance was off the charts, 35 and 10. I thought Adam Miller getting to the free-throw line 10 times was huge. 18 points there. Then I just think there were some other stats that have really been missing for us of late. You know, Trae Hannibal didn’t take a shot, but he had the highest plus/minus in the game of any player (+15). Juice Hill, four-to-one assist to turnover ratio, had the second-highest plus/minus in the game (+12). We have been challenging our players, this is where you find out what you are made of. It’s been a difficult stretch. Happy for our guys to come in here and play well and find a way to win.”
After Saturday’s game the Tigers return home for their final Baton Rouge game of the regular season on Wednesday night against Missouri.