BATON ROUGE – The LSU Tigers open Southeastern Conference play Saturday at Bryan-College Station as LSU takes on Texas A&M at Reed Arena.
The game is scheduled for 3 p.m. on ESPNU with Mike Morgan and Mark Wise on the call. The radio show will air on LSU Sports Radio Network affiliates (Guaranty Media’s flagship Baton Rouge affiliate, Eagle 98.1 FM) featuring the “Voice of the Tigers” Chris Blair and former LSU head coach John Brady.
The Tigers are 12-1 this year with four straight victories in the competition. This is the eighth time that the Tigers have posted a record without more than one defeat since the start of the 1999-2000 season. LSU comes into the game coming off a solid 90-62 home win over Southern Miss on Monday night.
Texas A&M is 10-3 this season, following a 111-82 win over Prairie View, also Monday night, at Reed Arena. Texas A&M scored 60 points in the first half of the victory and the team was led by Rashaun Agee with 19 points and 13 rebounds. Marcus Hill added 16 points and Ruben Dominguez scored 14. Pop Isaacs added 13 and Josh Holloway 10.
“This Texas A&M team is really, really good,” LSU coach Matt McMahon said during his Wednesday media session. “They’re averaging 96 points a game and some changes offensively. They’re really explosive out there. On the defensive side of the ball, they’re turning you over at a high rate, like Coach (Bucky) McMillan’s teams always have. They’re scoring a lot of points on defense. (They have) an older, really experienced team.”
The Aggies have won three straight games and topped 100 points in all three – 112-75 against Jacksonville, 118-77 against East Texas A&M and 111-82 against Prairie View. Dominguez leads the team in scoring this season with 13.7 points, with Agee at 12.8 per game. Hill averages it at 12.5 per game.
Coach McMillan is in his first year as head coach at Texas A&M. He has been the head coach for the past five seasons at Samford in Birmingham, taking the team to an NCAA and an NIT in that time.
“I think you’re looking at one of the top 10 fastest teams in the country,” A&M coach McMahon said. “They’re really explosive from the three-point line, one of the best shooting teams in the country, making almost 12 per game at 38 percent. Yet if my game is correct, that’s only a third of the pints they score, so they (can) hurt you in a lot of other ways.
“I think Hill and Agree are really good in the three-point arc. Hill is a combo guard and then Agee at the four and five points for them can really hurt you. And then because of their ability to turn you over, the multitude of presses they use, they get easy baskets off your turnovers. So ball security is going to be paramount…”
The Tigers were led in the Southern Miss game by point guard Dedan Thomas Jr. and interior starter Mike Nwoko. The two had 22 points in the game, the second straight game Thomas scored inside the 20s. He also had his third double-digit assist game this season for the Tigers with 12.
Additionally, Pablo Thomas (15) and Marquel Sutton (11) had double-digit rebounds for LSU as the Tigers shot over 51% for the game, the eighth time this year the Tigers have posted over 50% shooting through the first 13 games.
Regarding non-conference play, Coach McMahon said he was “really happy” with how that part of the season went. “Considering 12 newcomers to our 14 (players), (I) was very pleased with how quickly the group came together and connected, not just on the field, but especially off it. I think we adjusted pretty well to the major curveball we took with Jalen Reed’s unfortunate season-ending injury. We had a little time to make some of those adjustments.
“We had a couple bad halves that cost us in non-conference play, but overall we’re 12-1… So we have a lot to improve on, certainly, but overall, (I’m) happy with where we are as we enter the championship.”
The Tigers will open SEC home play Tuesday, Jan. 6 against South Carolina at 6 p.m. at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
