BATON ROUGE – LSU scored four points in the final eight seconds of the game to score an 85-81 win over UCF Wednesday night in an exhibition men’s basketball contest at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Tigers have won both exhibition games and will play one more on Oct. 24 at Florida State before the regular season starts on Nov. 3 against LSU New Orleans.
UCF, playing its first exhibition game, had just tied the game at 81-81 on a layup by Dior Johnson. Johnson was also fouled on the play and went to the line for one shot with 34 seconds to go in the contest. Johnson missed and Michael Ruzic rebounded the ball.
LSU played for the final shot and that came with eight seconds left when Donovan Dent drove the paint and scored to give LSU an 83-81 lead. On the inbounds, LSU’s Mo Dioubate knocked the ball away and was able to get another bucket for the 85-81 triumph.
The crazy finish was the topper to an entertaining game of twists and turns that saw 13 lead changes and 11 ties with LSU leading for 18:17 and UCF 17:29.
Again, LSU had limited court numbers with the five starters for the second straight game of Dioubate, Ruzic, Abdi Bashir Jr., Dent and Divine Ugochukwu. Jordan Bender off the bench played 10 minutes.
Dent came one rebound away from an exhibition game triple double, scoring 21 points with 11 assists and nine rebounds. He drew 13 fouls in playing 38 minutes. He also had three steals and three blocks.
Bashir came up big for the Tigers, making 10-of-17 from the floor and 6-of-12 from distance in scoring 26 points. Dioubate had 15 points as did Ruzic, who for the second straight exhibition game had a double double with 13 rebounds to do with four blocks.
Johnson had 18 points to lead UCF, while Lewis Walker and Jason Asemota had 13 points each.
Both teams hit double figure three pointers with UCF canning 11 and LSU 10. The Tigers were 10-of-26 (38.5 percent).
LSU had a 12-0 scoring run in the first eight minutes of the game to grab their biggest lead of the night at nine points, but UCF stayed close and would take a 47-45 advantage to the dressing room at halftime. The Knights would score the first six points out of the halftime break to push the lead to 53-45 but the Tigers would close the margin and swap leads with UCF until the final sequence.
UCF out rebounded LSU, 45-38 and had an 18-7 advantage in second chance points. The game was virtually even in the paint with LSU scoring 36 points and UCF 34.
For the game, LSU shot 49.2 percent (30-of-81), including 17-of-29 in the opening half. The Tigers struggled at the line in the second half making 8-of-17 (47.1 percent) and finished 15-of-27 for the game. UCF finished at 42.1 percent (32-of-76) and 6-of-9 at the line.
Tickets for non-conference games and season tickets remain on sale for the 2026-27 basketball season. Also mini-plans that includes SEC contests are available at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office and online at LSUTix.net.