Basketball Tigers Host Georgia in Tuesday Night Contest
BATON ROUGE – The LSU Tigers open the final two weeks of the 2024 Southeastern Conference men’s basketball season with a Tuesday home game against the Georgia Bulldogs.
The next-to-last home game for the Tigers is set to begin just after 6 p.m. CT at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center and tickets are on sale online at LSUTix.net and at the upper concourse ticket windows of the Maravich Center beginning at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
LSU students are admitted free with the ID. The first 500 students will receive free food from Whataburger and the spirit squad, which will perform at halftime, will also honor their senior members during the game.
The Voice of the Tigers Chris Blair and former LSU head coach John Brady will be courtside to call the game on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Guaranty Media flagship affiliated Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) with the telecast on the SEC Network with Tom Hart and Dane Bradshaw.
LSU is 14-13 overall and 6-8 in the SEC, while Georgia is 15-12 and 5-9 in the league. This will be the second meeting of the two school as Georgia won a narrow 68-66 win in Athens on Jan. 24, scoring in the final seconds to win the game, 68-66.
Both teams are coming off of Saturday losses with LSU falling to Mississippi State, 87-67, in Baton Rouge and Georgia lost to Auburn, 97-76, in Athens.
LSU was unable to get the shooting from distance going against Mississippi State, hitting just 3-of-17 from distance. The Tigers and Bulldogs game has seven ties and seven lead changes in the first 15 minutes before State took the lead for good with 4:21 to go in the first half. MSU was able to extend a 7-point halftime advantage to double digits in the first minute of the second half and LSU was never able to get a rally going.
Trae Hannibal had a career high 22 points for LSU in the contest and Jordan Wright 14 as the only two double figure scores for the Tigers.
LSU lost Tyrell Ward after playing some 13 minutes in the first half with a leg issue and he was never able to return. LSU also played for the third straight game without Jalen Cook, who has been battling a leg problem.
At his Monday media session, Coach Matt McMahon said: ““Tyrell Ward, who was injured in the first half on Saturday, is day-to-day … We’ll see how he is in practice (Monday). Obviously, that hurt us. He’s been our best player our last five games. Really scoring the ball at a high level. Jalen Cook remains day-to-day with leg soreness.”
The Tigers won two of the six consecutive games against Top 51 NCAA NET teams and now have two home and two road games against teams ranked 98 or below in the NET rankings to conclude the season leading into the SEC Tournament. At present LSU is in a three-way tie for eighth place in the SEC standings with Ole Miss and Texas A&M.
“(We are) excited to get back to it (Tuesday) night,” Coach McMahon said. Obviously a really well-coached Georgia team. You look at the way Noah Thomasson’s been playing here of late, really shooting it well from three. (Averaging) 17 a game over his last five. (Russel) Tchewa, who really gave us problems in our first matchup — had a double-double, 11 and 11 — has upped his scoring production here recently. And then I think their point guard play has been really good. When you look at (Silas) Demary and (Justin) Hill, that combination, last five games about 20 points per game, five assists between the two of them. So, it’ll be a quick turnaround, but I think our guys are locked in and excited about the opportunity here (Tuesday) night.”
LSU will travel to Nashville this Saturday for a 2:30 p.m. game against Vanderbilt.