BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s basketball team, fresh off a strong season opening performance on Tuesday, will be back in action Friday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center against Texas Southern.
Game time is 7 p.m. and tickets are available at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office or online at LSUTix.net. Those fans going to the upper concourse ticket windows of the Maravich Center (which opens at 6 p.m. Friday) can show their LSU-Alabama football ticket for free admission to the game. LSU students are admitted free of charge with valid student ID.
The first 1,000 fans will receive free “Boot Up” Koozies.
The game will be broadcast on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Eagle 98.1 FM is the Guaranty Media flagship in Baton Rouge) with the “Voice” of the Tigers, Chris Blair, and former Tiger player Jordy Hultberg on the call. The game will be streamed on SECN+ with Lyn Rollins and Victor Howell on the broadcast.
LSU is coming off a 100-57 win over LSU New Orleans in the opener.
In that game, the Tigers had six players in double figures led Donovan Dent scoring 19 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. Freshman Michael Ruzic off the bench had 17 points and Saliou Niang had 14 points, 14 rebounds, five assists and six steals. Brice Dessert scored 13 points, Abdi Bashir Jr. posted 11 and Mo Dioubate 10.
LSU shot 51.3 percent from the floor (39-of-76) with seven made three-pointers and a good 15-of-20 at the free throw line. The Tigers had 24 assists in the game and pulled down 53 rebounds as LSU hit 100 points for the sixth time in a Will Wade coached game at LSU.
The Tigers had 60 points in the paint, making 30-of-45 shots (66.7 percent) in that area. Only three of LSU’s two-point shots were outside the painted area.
Texas Southern comes in 0-1 after a 103-79 loss at Grand Canyon in Phoenix on Monday. Texas Southern shot 42.4 percent for the game and was led in scoring by Bilal Karras with 15 points, while Jason Kimbrough Jr., had 14.
Now LSU assistant coach Johnny Jones served as the head coach at Texas Southern for the past eight seasons before returning to Baton Rouge. Jones, a former player and head coach at LSU, took the Houston-based Tigers to three NCAA Tournaments and five post-season appearances overall in his tenure at TSU.
LSU will wrap up its three-game opening home stand on Monday at 7 p.m. when the Tigers host Louisiana Tech.