BATON ROUGE – The Kansas State Wildcats, off three consecutive overtime wins, will be the opponent Saturday for the LSU Tigers in the first of a home-and-home series that begins at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Tipoff is just after 12:30 p.m. on Saturday and tickets are available at LSUTix.net or at the upper concourse box office of the Maravich Center beginning at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday. LSU Students get in free with their ID card and the first 500 students will receive “Boot Up” t-shirts.
The “Voice of the Tigers” Chris Blair and former LSU Coach John Brady will have the call on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Guaranty Media flagship Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and the game will be seen on the SEC Network with Mike Morgan and Jon Sundvold on the telecast.
The famed acrobat Red Panda will entertain folks at halftime.
Kansas State’s appearance in the Maravich Center marks the first time since Wake Forest on Dec. 28, 2015, that a major conference school outside the SEC at the time of the game has played a November-December game in Baton Rouge. The Wildcats are 7-2 and coming off a one-point, 72-71 win over Villanova in overtime on Tuesday.
Arthur Kaluma averages 16.5 points per game to lead the Wildcats, while Cam Carter and Tylor Perry are both at 16.4. That trio averages over 49 points of the team’s 81.6 scoring average. Kaluma grabs 8.5 rebounds a game while David N’Guessan is at 8.3 rebounds.
The teams met last year in the championship of the Cayman Islands Classic with Kansas State getting a 61-59 decision. LSU appeared to have tied the game as the horn sounded on a layup by Trae Hannibal but the bucket was taken off the board because an official review showed the clock did not start on time and that the bucket would have come after the buzzer.
“They (Kansas State) are a terrific team coming off of a great year. They did very well in the portal with their three guys, (Arthur) Kaluma, (Tylor) Perry and then Cam Carter’s return, they are getting about 50 points per game among the three of them. They are really explosive offensively, a very good rebounding team and then have created a lot of problems for people with their pressure on the defensive end of the floor. They’ve been in a lot of close games and found ways to win, so tremendous credit to them for that.”
The two teams will meet again next season in Manhattan, Kansas.
LSU is 5-3 after its win over Southeastern on Tuesday. This is the first of four games LSU will play after the conclusion of exam week.
Will Baker leads the Tigers in scoring at 14.9 points per game. He is also averaging 5.8 rebounds a game. Jordan Wright is at 12.5 points and Jalen Reed is scoring at a 9.6 points per game clip and leads the team in rebounding at 5.9 boards a game. Tyrell Ward, who started his first game of the year on Tuesday, is averaging 9.5 points. The Tigers are averaging 74.5 points a contest.