BATON ROUGE – Another Florida university comes to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center for the second time in a week as the LSU Tiger basketball team takes on Florida Gulf Coast University Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m.
Tickets for the game can be found at LSUtix.net and at the upper concourse ticket windows at 1 p.m. Sunday. LSU students are admitted free with valid ID.
The “Voice” of the Tigers Chris Blair and former LSU head coach John Brady will call the game on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (the Guaranty Media flagship for this game will be 100.7 FM The Tiger in Baton Rouge). Lyn Rollins and Victor Howell will have the streaming broadcast of the game on SECN+.
LSU is 7-1 on the season after an 85-75 win over Florida State on Tuesday night in the SEC/ACC Challenge game in Baton Rouge. The Tigers, trailing by three at intermission, posted 53 second half points to put away the Seminoles as part of the SEC’s 14-2 win in the challenge series over the ACC.
Cam Carter led LSU with 26 points and eight rebounds, while Jordan Sears hit four treys in scoring 21 points with six boards, while Vyctorius Miller hit 15 in what was his sixth consecutive double figure scoring game.
“It was an emotional week,” said LSU Coach Matt McMahon. “Really proud of our players, thrilled with the performance and the improving crowd environment on Tuesday night in the win over Florida State. I thought our second half performance was just terrific. The rim protection that was provided from Daimion (Collins0, Rob Miller to Corey Chest and company. We had fantastic ball security against that team that was third in the country forcing turnovers (limiting those to 11) and then just the overall offensive efficiency in the second half, once our players got comfortable against the aggressive switching for Florida State.
“Of course, the second part of that emotion is the devastation and heartbreak for Jalen Reed with his season ending injury with the ACL. Just, you know, one of my favorite players that I’ve had the opportunity to coach over the years. He was really the first guy when I got here, and there wasn’t a whole lot to sell, he was the first top 100 players to really jump on board and take a chance on us, and since then, we’ve been able to sign our last seven guys that have been top 100 players. He’s worked extremely hard. You’ve seen him get better every year. We are so heartbroken for him.”
Florida Gulf Coast is 3-6 after a 76-73 loss at home to Furman on Wednesday. The Eagles led 44-33 at the half and twice had a 13-points lead in the second half. Zavian McLean scored 19 points with Jevin Muniz betting 16 for FGCU.
“I think they are a lot better than the record reflects. They had a top 100 win on the road at Florida Atlantic, where I thought they played terrific. They were down 14 in the first half, went on a huge run, took the lead, ended up hitting a really difficult shot at the buzzer to win,” said Coach McMahon. “They try to control tempo. They don’t beat themselves on either end of the floor. I think they run a lot of great actions offensively, they’ll spread you out. I think our players understand this is a good team coming here Sunday, and we’ll prepare accordingly.”
The players will join other students in final exam week at LSU before the Tigers travel to Frisco, Texas for a Saturday 3 p.m. game with SMU at Comerica Center in the Compete 4 Cause Classic.