Basketball Tigers Set For Final Regular-Season Road Contest at Arkansas
BATON ROUGE – The LSU Tigers, winner of four its last five games, tries to get a final regular season road win when it travels to Fayetteville for a Wednesday contest with the University of Arkansas at Bud Walton Arena.
The game is scheduled to tip just after 6 p.m. and will be broadcast on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network with the Voice of the Tigers Chris Blair and former LSU men’s basketball coach John Brady on the call (Guaranty Media flagship station in Baton Rouge, Eagle 98.1 FM). Mike Morgan and Joe Kleine will have the television call on the SEC Network.
The Tigers are 16-13, guaranteed of a winning regular season with two games to play, and 8-8 in the SEC, tied for seventh place in the league. Arkansas is 14-15 overall and 5-11 in the SEC.
The teams are meeting for the second time this season with LSU playing one of its best overall games of the season back on Feb. 3 when the Tigers defeated the Razorbacks, 95-74. LSU in that game was led by the 25 points of Will Baker and 20 from Jalen Cook.
Baker was 9-of-11 from the field including 4-of-5 from three-point range. That was also one of three games that Jordan Wright made 10 free throws, going 10-of-10 from the line to finish with 13 points.
LSU was 12-of-23 from three-point range and 25-of-28 at the free throw line in the contest.
LSU has won three times on the road in the SEC at Texas A&M, South Carolina and Vanderbilt. It is the most conference road wins for the Tigers since LSU had four conference road victories in the 2020-21 season. The road wins over South Carolina and Vanderbilt are the first time LSU has had consecutive road wins in conference since LSU won the first three road games of the 2019-20 season.
In the 75-61 win over Vanderbilt, it was a total team effort with five players in double figures and one more with eight points. LSU built a 20-point halftime advantage and held Vanderbilt at bay on the two occasions it cut the game to 10 points.
“I thought we had two really good days of preparation coming off the win against Georgia and then put together a complete performance Saturday in Nashville,” said LSU Coach Matt McMahon at his Monday media session. “I loved the unselfishness that we played with. We had five guys in double figures, Hunter Dean right behind with eight points and five rebounds in the game. I thought Trae Hannibal, I don’t remember the last time someone scored a single point in the game, yet had such an impact on winning. It was a great defensive effort and certainly something for us to build on as we enter the final week of the regular season. A great challenge at Arkansas on Wednesday. I thought they were awesome on Saturday at Rupp Arena, scoring over 100 points. (Khalif) Battle has been phenomenal, (Tramon) Mark is an elite guard, (Makhi) Mitchell at the five averaging 14 and 7 over their last five games. So, it will be a great test for us on Wednesday night.”
Arkansas is coming off a loss at Kentucky, but the Razorbacks really shined in the scoring department, posting 102 points in a 111-102 loss to the Wildcats. Khalif Battle, in his last three games has averaged 37.3 points per game, 6.7 rebounds and made 45-of-49 free throws. His 112 points over three games is an Arkansas record.
Since the first meeting with LSU, the Razorbacks have gone 3-and-4 with wins versus Georgia, at Texas A&M and Missouri. The Razorbacks are 9-6 at Bud Walton Arena this season.
LSU will close the regular season back at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. against Missouri. Tickets are available at LSutix.net. The senior day ceremonies Saturday will start at 7:10 p.m. for Jordan Wright, Will Baker, Hunter Dean, Trae Hannibal and four-year senior Mwani Wilkinson.