by Kent Lowe, Sr. Associate Sports Information Director
BATON ROUGE -- The LSU men’s basketball team gets its first official opportunity to see how much it has learned in just under a month of practice Friday night when the 2009-10 season gets underway as the Tigers host the University of Louisiana at Monroe in a 7 p.m. game at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Tickets for the contest are available online at www.LSUSports.net and through early afternoon Friday at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office. The upper concourse ticket windows at the Maravich Center will open for will-call pickup and walk-up sales beginning at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are priced starting at $11 for adults and $5 tickets are available for youth (ages 3-12) and groups of 10 or more. LSU students get in free at the upper Southeast entrance with a valid ID.
The LSU Sports Radio Network will have the broadcast with Jim Hawthorne beginning his 30th year (in the past 31) behind the microphone. Longtime broadcast partner Kevin Ford will again by alongside and the pair will have a new partner for home games, popular former player and member of the All-Century team Ricky Blanton. The pregame show begins at 6:30 p.m. and can be found on the network affiliates (New Country 100.7 FM The Tiger in Baton Rouge) and with streaming video from the scoreboard cameras in the Geaux Zone at LSUsports.net.
This will be a much different LSU team than the Tiger squad that captured the 2009 Southeastern Conference championship with a 13-3 record. Gone are five seniors in a league that was very youthful and in its place is a much older league with LSU as one of the younger teams in that league. But back is senior leader Tasmin Mitchell, one of just nine players in the program’s history to start on two SEC Championship teams (2006, 2009).
Mitchell averaged over 16 points a year ago for the Tigers and will be looked upon to again have that type of points output, but more importantly his leadership will be a key as this team looks to find its identity under second year SEC Coach of the Year Trent Johnson.
The team has had two closed to the public scrimmages per NCAA rules the past two Sundays and Coach Johnson has some ideas about his team.
“I think the one thing we really do understand is that we have a great feel of how hard we have to play on every possession,” said Johnson earlier this week at the team’s media session. “Our ability to take care of the ball is huge. This is a basketball team that has to catch it with two hands and we have to protect it like it is everything.”
LSU will dress 12 players for the opener after LSU’s other senior, Alex Farrer, dislocated his left kneecap in Sunday’s scrimmage. He is expected to be out for at least six weeks.
ULM was 10-20 a year ago, but won its exhibition over Texas-Tyler, 82-39, and will have a veteran group of players on the floor for fifth-year head coach Orlando Early. Early spent some time in the SEC as an assistant at the University of Alabama before getting the ULM position.
“This is a very talents UL-Monroe team,” the second year LSU coach said. “They return a lot of guys from last year’s team. This is a group that has a level of experience, but the case for us is to always get better every day. We’re making some progress in that regard.”
LSU’s starting lineup still is not clear for the season opener other than Tasmin Mitchell will start at one of the forward positions. With Farrer out, LSU could go with 6-10 sophomore Garrett Green and Monroe sophomore Storm Warren. Green missed all of last year with a back problem that led to surgery and missed the scrimmage this past Sunday with some more back issues. Dennis Harris redshirted last year and will be looking to see his first collegiate action in this contest.
Bo Spencer is expected to be one of the guards depended on, but players like sophomore Chris Bass, freshman Aaron Dotson and Zach Kinsley, who has looked good in scrimmages, could see plenty of minutes at the guard positions.
LSU will play at home Monday and Tuesday in the first two rounds of the Dick’s Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off. Milwaukee will meet Western Kentucky in the opener at 4:30 p.m. and LSU will host Indiana State at 7 p.m. The losers and winners will meet on Tuesday with the 2-0 team from the four teams advancing to the NIT semifinals in New York City, Nov. 25 and 27. Tickets for the NIT are on sale online at LSUsports.net. LSU and Coach Johnson have each purchased 250 student tickets for the games and the first 500 students will be admitted free on both nights.
