Basketball hosts Florida St. in SEC/ACC Challenge, Tuesday; Free T-Shirts for LSU Students – LSU

BATON ROUGE – The LSU Tigers look to help themselves and the Southeastern Conference on Tuesday night when they host Florida State in the second SEC/ACC Challenge at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

The Tigers and Seminoles are scheduled to play shortly after 8:00 p.m. CT tipoff. Tickets are available at LSUTix.net and begin one hour prior to the game at the Maravich Center Upper Concourse ticket windows. It’s another Beat The Buzzer Tuesday at LSU men’s basketball games with 50% off select food, drinks and beer from doors open at 7 p.m. until 10 minutes before kickoff.

LSU students are admitted free and the first 500 students at the game will receive one of LSU’s new “The Big Time” t-shirts for the competition.

Voice of the Tigers Chris Blair and former LSU men’s basketball coach John Brady will broadcast the game on LSUsports.net/live and LSU Sports Radio Network partners including Baton Rouge Guaranty Media’s flagship Eagle 98.1 FM. Roy Philpott and Dane Bradshaw will host the televised conversation on the SEC Network.

The game is one of ten scheduled games between the two leagues, with six additional games taking place on Wednesday. Last year, the leagues tied 7-7 in a 14-game challenge. LSU lost at Syracuse a year ago.

The Tigers are 6-1 and ranked No. 50 in the inaugural NCAA NET rankings, which were first released Monday. Florida State comes into the game at 7-1 and has a four-game winning streak. The Seminoles, under veteran coach Leonard Hamilton, suffered their only loss to Florida in a game in Tallahassee.

“A great opportunity for us (Tuesday) night against a really good Florida State team,” LSU coach Matt McMahon said. “I always have great respect for Coach Hamilton and his teams. They are elite defensively. When you look at the numbers, fifth in the country in block percentage, fourth in steal percentage, third in forced turnovers, they really protect you and are very disruptive on that end of the floor.

“Offensively, Coach Hamilton has very balanced teams. They are led by (guard Jamir) Watkins, who is averaging over 17 per game in just 25 minutes, which is difficult to achieve. Great respect for your team.”

The Tigers are coming off another game with a slow start in the first half, where the Tigers trailed at halftime for the third straight time before getting the offense going in the second half, including a 77-53 Win over Northwestern State on Friday LSU trailed by one after 20 minutes.

“I like the direction we’re going as a group,” Coach McMahon said of the Tigers. “I was very happy with our second half on Friday evening and the win. We had a few good days of preparation for this game. We would be happy to have a great audience on Tuesday. It’s the last week of classes (for the semester), so hope for a big student turnout (Tuesday night) at eight o’clock on the SEC Network.”

The Tigers are expected to stick with the same lineup they used in the last two games against UCF and Northwestern State, with guards Cam Carter, Jordan Sears and Dji Bailey and forwards Corey Chest and Jalen Reed.

Carter leads the Tigers with an average of 16.7 points per game, while Sears is at 14.7 and Reed is at 12.4. Vyctorius Miller has come off the bench in double figures in the last five games and is averaging 11.1 points per game.