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Senior Night At PMAC For LSU Basketball; 7:44 PM Ceremonies; 8:05 Tip; Red Panda At Halftime

by Kent Lowe
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Senior Night At PMAC For LSU Basketball; 7:44 PM Ceremonies; 8:05 Tip; Red Panda At Halftime

BATON ROUGE – The LSU Tigers will step on the Pete Maravich Assembly Center court for the final home game of the year Wednesday night as LSU will honor two seniors on Senior Night.

The game will tip at 8:05 p.m. but fans are invited to arrive early for the ceremonies that will honor KJ Williams and Parker Edwards. That ceremony will begin at 7:44 p.m.

Also, Red Panda acrobatic act returns to LSU and will perform at halftime of the game.

Tickets for the game are available online at LSUTix.net and beginning one hour prior to tipoff at the upper concourse ticket windows of the Maravich Center. LSU students are admitted free of charge and the first 500 Wednesday night will receive free food from Whataburger.

The game will be broadcast on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network with the Voice of the Tigers, Chris Blair, and former LSU basketball coach John Brady. Dave Neal and Jon Sundvold will have the call on the SEC Network television broadcast.

Edwards, from Covington, Louisiana has been a part of four seasons at LSU after a freshman season at Southeastern Louisiana. As both a walk-on and scholarship player at Southeastern and LSU, Edwards has seen action in 40 games.

His greatest moment came at Southeastern in the opening game of the 2018-19 season at the Maravich Center against LSU. Edwards was put in with 11 minutes remaining for the Lions and made six three-pointers and finished the game with 25 points.

Williams has shown the success he had in the Ohio Valley for Murray State would continue at LSU and the Southeastern Conference. During the season he became just the eighth player to have played at least part of their career in the SEC and the 123rd player in all of college basketball to record 2,000 career points and 1,000 career rebounds.

With just four points in Wednesday’s game, the native of Cleveland, Mississippi will become the 16th player since the 1978-79 season to record 500 points and 200 rebounds in an LSU season. He would join such names from that era as Tari Eason, Johnny O’Bryant III (another Cleveland, Mississippi native) Tasmin Mitchell, Glen Davis, Brandon Bass, Shaquille O’Neal, Ricky Blanton and Rudy Macklin to accomplish the single season mark.

Williams in the past week scored 62 points in two games, scoring 35 (with 10 boards) against Vanderbilt and 29 points at Ole Miss. He enters Wednesday’s game second in the conference in scoring at 17.1 points a game and also averaging 7.3 rebounds and 1.2 steals.

“It’s Senior Night 2023 (Wednesday). We want to invite everyone out as we get the final opportunity to honor our seniors,” said Coach Matt McMahon. “Want to start with Parker Edwards. I really enjoyed getting to coach him this season. Came over from Southeastern Louisiana a couple of years ago, already has his degree in marketing at LSU and will complete his master’s here in the spring. Just a high character young man, all about the team. Will go on to have great success in whatever avenue he so chooses.

“Then KJ Williams. It will be his last game here at LSU in the PMAC. Been an absolute privilege getting to coach him over the last five seasons. Just became the 123rd player in the history of college basketball to go over 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. I know he’s most proud of crossing the century mark with over 100 wins, his two NCAA Tournament wins and those appearances. Looking forward to celebrating with him and his family tomorrow night.”

Missouri is having a good year under first-year coach Dennis Gates with a 21-8 mark and 9-7 in the SEC. Mizzou got an 87-77 victory over LSU in Columbia exactly one month ago on Feb. 1. LSU had an amazing six players in double figures in that game with KJ Williams getting 15, Justice Hill 13, Adam Miller Derek Fountain and Trae Hannibal 11 each and Cam Hayes 10.

LSU shot 40.9 percent with 11 three-pointers on that game, but Missouri won on top of their shooting game from the beginning, making 33-of-59 shots (55.9%) with 13 three-pointers. LSU out rebounded Missouri, 38-32, and 15-5 on the offensive boards.

The home Tigers are trying to finish off the regular season with two straight home wins and to keep their unblemished 6-0 record at home against Mizzou since the Tigers joined the league.

LSU closes the regular season on Saturday at Florida.