BATON ROUGE – The LSU Tigers, after losing its last two SEC Basketball games by a combined six points, looks to find a winning formula at a very difficult place for a road team, Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa as Alabama and LSU meet in the final game of January for the LSU Tigers.
The Tigers and Crimson Tide will meet just after 7 p.m. CT with Chris Blair and John Brady calling the game on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Guaranty Media flagship Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and Tom Hart and Jimmy Dykes on the television call on ESPN.
LSU is 11-8 and 3-3 in the SEC, while Alabama moved back into a tie for the league lead at 5-1 after a 79-75 win over Auburn on Wednesday. The Crimson Tide is 13-6.
Alabama has won 7-of-the-last-8 meetings in the series with LSU’s last win in Tuscaloosa in 2019. LSU’s last overall win in the series came in the 2022 season finale in Baton Rouge.
LSU lost one Saturday ago by four points, 73-69, at home to Texas A&M and lost by two points Wednesday, 68-66, at Georgia.
Against Georgia the Tigers were eight points down with 2:55 to play in the game and scored nine straight points to take the lead. The last three came on a driving layup and foul by Jalen Cook, who mad ethe free throw with 16 seconds left to give LSU a 66-65 lead.
Georgia was able to come down and off a miss get an offensive rebound and create a three-point play of its own to get the win.
Cook had 21 points to lead LSU in scoring, while Jordan Wright made it 16 consecutive double figure scoring games with 18 points.
In its win, Alabama was led by Mark Sears with 22 points and eight assists. Sears leads Alabama at 19.8 points per game for the season. Aaron Estrada is at 12.6 points and Grant Nelson, who had 11 points and 11 rebounds against Auburn, averages 12.2 points a game for fifth-year head coach Nate Oats.
“Big practice for us (Friday) coming off the tough loss Wednesday night,” said head coach Matt McMahon at his Friday morning media session. “I thought our guys’ effort was terrific, competed at a high level but just unable to get that one stop we needed there at the end of the game. Great opportunity (Saturday); Alabama, number one offensive team in the country. Incredibly explosive at that end of the floor, guard play has been elite. I thought that was a high-level game Wednesday night in their win over Auburn. So, they present a lot of challenges on both sides of the ball, but looking forward to the opportunity (Saturday) night.”
LSU will have a week off after the Alabama game before beginning the final 11 games of the 2023-24 regular season. The Tigers play Arkansas at 11 a.m. on Feb. 3 at the Maravich Center. Tickets are on sale at LSUTix.net.