LSU begins NIT vs. North Texas on Tuesday at PMAC
BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s basketball team begins postseason play here Tuesday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center when the Tigers host North Texas in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament.
The game is set to tip at just after 6 p.m. with the “Voice” of the Tigers Chris Blair and former head coach John Brady on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Guaranty Media flagship Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and televised on the SEC Network with Mike Morgan and Mark Wise on the broadcast.
General admission tickets for the game are $20 for adults and $10 for youth. The first 1,500 LSU students with valid student ID will be admitted free of charge for the game. Tickets are available at LSUTix.net and beginning at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the upper concourse ticket windows of the Maravich Center.
LSU is 17-15 overall after a 9-9 finish in the Southeastern Conference, while North Texas comes in at 18-14 and 10-8 in the American Athletic Conference. LSU was the four seed in the eight-team Seton Hall bracket after being the top automatic qualifier from the SEC.
Ironically, this first-round meeting is a rematch of a game played back on Friday, November 17 in the Charleston Classic, won by LSU, 66-62. LSU got 16 points from Will Baker, 14 from Derek Fountain, who was 6-of-6 from the floor, and 12 from Jordan Wright.
Jason Edwards led the Mean Green with 22 points off the bench, making four three-pointers. There were 22 lead changes in the game. The Tigers shot 50 percent in the game (24-of-48), but just 4-of-13 from distance. On the other hand, North Texas was 19-of-60 from the field (31.7 percent) overall but made 12-of-32 three pointers (37.5) percent.
“We’re excited to continue the season (Tuesday),” said LSU Coach Matt McMahon. “We have a really good North Texas team coming in here. Giving a quick preview of them, top 40 defense in the country, they do a terrific job forcing turnovers. From an offensive standpoint, one of the top 15 three-point shooting teams in the country, is really efficient there. I think Coach (Ross) Hodge does a great job with the design of their offense to take advantage of mismatches. They have a lot of really skilled and talented guards out there on the floor. They’re a top 40 offensive rebounding team in the country, Robert Allen is as good of an offensive rebounder as there is in the country. I just have a lot of respect for the way they play; really physical, tough and aggressive and very skilled with their ability to shoot the ball from three and create one-on-ones off the dribble.
“As for the opportunity for our team, we’re really excited, I thought our players had really good energy and focus (Sunday) at practice and our thankful and appreciative for the opportunity to continue to play. I really want to invite all our fans to come out Tuesday night for the early tip at 6 p.m. Hope to have a lot of our LSU students there for the game.”
This is the ninth time in its history that LSU has played in the NIT and the fourth time LSU has played a home game in the postseason NIT. The Tigers last played in the event in 2018 when the Tigers advanced to the second round.
North Texas is the defending NIT champion, defeating UAB in the finals a year ago.
The winner of the LSU-North Texas matchup will play the winner of Wednesday’s opening round game between Seton Hall and Saint Joseph’s. That game would be played on either Saturday or Sunday and LSU would travel for that contest.
