BATON ROUGE – The LSU Tigers look to find the right 40 minutes of basketball as they begin a week of games on the road Tuesday at Gainesville against the University of Florida at Exactech Arena.
The game will tipoff just after 7 p.m. CT with the Voice of the Tigers Chris Blair and former LSU Coach John Brady on the call on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Guaranty Media Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge). Tom Hart and Dane Bradshaw will have the television broadcast on the SEC Network.
The Tigers, 12-11 and 4-6, are coming off a 109-92 loss at home on Saturday to national-ranked Alabama. LSU was able to battle the Tide for 32 minutes before Alabama was able to get some good shots to go and LSU struggled with turnovers, rebounding and shot selection in the final eight minutes.
Florida is coming off an 81-65 win over nationally-ranked Auburn in Gainesville on Saturday. The Gators have won four-of-their-last-five including two overtime wins – at home against Georgia and at Rupp Arena against Kentucky. Florida’s only loss in the five games was by one point, 67-66, at Texas A&M on Feb. 3.
In the win over Auburn, Riley Kugel led the Gators with 22 points while Walter Clayton Jr. had 20 points and Zyon Pullin added 19 more. Florida was 27-of-67 from the field in the game (40.3$) with seven treys and 20-of-26 from the free throw line.
Clayton is averaging a team-leading 16.0 points per game for the year while Pullin is at 15.6 points. Tyrese Samuel is at 13.0 points, Will Richard 11.2 and Kugel 11.0 points a game.
The Tigers are two games into a five-game gauntlet that sees LSU play four nationally-ranked teams and no team lower than 44 in the NCAA Net rankings.
LSU in the game with Alabama Will Baker continued his strong play with his 12th 20-point game of his career with 24 points on 9-of-14 shooting with two treys. Jalen Cook finished with 20 points, eight rebounds and four assists and Tyrell Ward added 15. Trae Hannibal was limited to just 11 minutes because of foul trouble, but still had six assists.
LSU shot 55 percent for the game hitting 33-of-60 shots with seven treys.
The Tigers will play on the road Saturday against nationally-ranked South Carolina before returning to the Maravich Center for a Feb. 21 game against Kentucky.