First Meeting In SEC Basketball With Oklahoma Awaits Tigers Saturday In Norman
BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s basketball team heads to a place it hasn’t played at in over 20 years when it travels to Norman, Oklahoma to face the University of Oklahoma for the first time as an SEC member Saturday afternoon.
LSU and Oklahoma will meet at the Lloyd Noble Center at just after 5 p.m. CT with the Voice of the Tigers, Chris Blair, and former LSU head coach John Brady on the call on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Guaranty Media Baton Rouge flagship Eagle 98.1 FM) and on television on the SEC Network with Kevin Fitzgerald and Joe Kleine.
The team have only met five times but in some pretty important games over the years in a series that Oklahoma leads, 3-2.
The only time in the five games that the Tigers traveled to Norman was in March 2004 when the teams met in the opening round of the NIT. Oklahoma won that game, 70-61.
The last meeting in the series came in Baton Rouge at the end of January 2016 in the old SEC/Big 12 Challenge when then No. 1 Oklahoma came to the Maravich Center. The Sooners won the game, 77-75.
The teams first met in 1970 in Madison Square Garden in the quarterfinal round of the NIT with LSU and Pete Maravich, defeating Oklahoma, 97-94. Maravich would score 37 points and flirted with a triple-double with eight rebounds and nine assists.
The teams also met in 1987 and 1988 in what would be called a semi-neutral setting in Oklahoma City and New Orleans with the teams winning in their home states.
Oklahoma is 16-8 and 3-8 in the SEC and trying to snap a three-game losing streak under fourth year coach Porter Moser.
Jalen Moore leads Oklahoma in scoring at 17.3 points per game with Jeremiah Fears is averaging 15.2 points a contest.
The Tigers are coming off a 70-58 loss at Arkansas on Wednesday. One of the highlights of that game was the play of freshman forward Robert Miller III. Miller had his best game of his short college career as he made 8-of-13 field goals in scoring 16 points, working down on the low block displaying several post moves that allowed him to get to the basket.
LSU returns home for three straight home games starting Tuesday against South Carolina (8 p.m.). LSU will also host nationally ranked teams Florida (Feb. 22) and Tennessee (Feb. 25). Tickets are on sale at LSUTix.net.