The Tigers, 17-15 a year ago,
will face a minimum of 13 teams that went to post-season play a year ago,
including seven that appeared in the NCAA Tournament. That number could go up
depending on LSU's second and third day opponents in the EA Sports Maui
Invitational.
Oregon State (Dec. 22) and
Washington (Dec. 29) will come to the Maravich Assembly Center in return games
from a year ago when LSU split with the two teams. The last Pac-10 team to come
to Baton
Rouge was No. 1-ranked Arizona, a team the Tigers beat, 66-65, in
Dec. 2002.
The prestigious EA Sports Maui
Invitational field, scheduled Nov. 19-21, has LSU facing Oklahoma State in the
first-round of the eight-team tournament. The Tigers will face either host
Chaminade or Marquette on the second day of the event that also includes Duke,
Illinois, Princeton and Arizona State.
LSU will play 15 home games in
the Maravich Center along with two exhibition games. The first exhibition game
on Nov. 1 will against Belhaven. The season will open with two games against
Louisiana schools as LSU will host Southeastern
Louisiana on Nov. 12 and McNeese
State on Nov. 14 before leaving for the
trip to Maui.
The Tigers will be one of four
SEC teams playing in two locations in the first year of the Big East/SEC
Challenge and the Tigers will travel on Dec. 6 to Philadelphia's Wachovia Center to take on Villanova in the second game of the
doubleheader that also features Providence and
South
Carolina.
"The schedule for this basketball
season is definitely one of the most challenging we have had here at LSU," said
Brady, who begins his 11th year as the head coach of the Tigers. "The
prestigious Maui Invitational, the SEC/Big East Challenge are two tournament
situations that will certainly test our team early on neutral sites. Road games
at Wichita State (Dec. 19), Tulane (Jan. 2) and Texas A&M (Jan. 5)
will provide additional opportunities for our team to find out about ourselves
in a hostile environment."
Included in LSU's home schedule
will be a renewal of the cross-town series with Southern University on Dec. 1.
The Tigers enter the season with a 62-game home winning streak against
Louisiana
schools dating back to December 1988.
"Our home games, anchored by
Oregon State and Washington of the Pac-10, give our fans an
opportunity to see quality teams they do not regularly get to see," said Brady. "Our commitment to play the in-state schools remains, as does our home games
in the SEC which is still the toughest conference in the country. We are excited
about the opportunities and challenges this schedule brings."
LSU is scheduled to play a
minimum of 21 games on regional or national television including six on the ESPN
networks. All the games from the EA Sports Maui Invitational will be televised
on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU, while the Big East/SEC Challenge will be available on
ESPN. The LSU game at Texas A&M will be carried by ESPNU as part of the Big
12 television package and LSU's home game on Saturday night, Jan. 26, with
Arkansas will
put the Tigers for the first time in a live game on ESPN Classic.
The Tigers will be featured seven
times on the league's regional syndicator, Lincoln Financial Sports, including a
rare Sunday conference home game on March 2 against Georgia. LSU
will also be televised three times on Fox Sports Net and five times on the CST
regional network, including the Oregon State (Dec. 22) and Alabama home games
(March 5).
LSU will play eight conference
games at home as usual with all five Western Division teams coming to Baton
Rouge -- Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Ole Miss and Mississippi State -- along with
three of the Eastern Division teams -- Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky.
The Tigers and Wichita State will
meet in Wichita in the second half of a home-and-home series and LSU's visit to
A&M will be the first time the Tigers have gone to College Station for a
game since 1981. This will be the second straight year the Tigers have traveled
to the New Orleans Arena to take on Tulane.
LSU also gets an early start on
the season with an exhibition tour to Toronto, Canada, over Labor Day Weekend. The
returning players will begin practice this Friday (Aug. 24) to be joined by the
newcomers on the first day of school (Aug. 27) before leaving for Toronto on the
evening of Aug. 31. The team will play the University of Guelph on Sept. 1, York University on Sept. 2 and the University of Toronto on Sept. 3 before returning home
that evening.
LSU 2007-08 Men's Basketball
Schedule
All Times Central; Home Games in
All CAPS
November
1 -- BELHAVEN (Exhibition), 7
p.m.
6 -- GLOBAL SPORTS (Exhibition),
7 p.m.
12 -- SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA (CST), 7
p.m.
14 -- MCNEESE STATE (CST), 7 p.m.
19 -- vs. Oklahoma State in EA Sports Maui Invitational, (ESPN2), 4 p.m.
20 -- vs. Chaminade or Marquette
in EA Sports Maui Invitational (ESPN), 12:30 or
6 p.m.
21 -- TBA in EA Sports Maui Invitational (ESPN)
28 -- NICHOLLS
STATE (CST), 7 p.m.
December
1 -- SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY, 1
p.m.
6 -- at Villanova (Big East/SEC
Challenge) (ESPN), 8:30 p.m.
15 -- NORTHWESTERN STATE, 7
p.m.
19 -- at Wichita State, 7 p.m.
22 -- OREGON STATE (CST), 2 p.m.
29 -- WASHINGTON (FSN), 2
p.m.
January
2 -- at Tulane (New Orleans Arena), 7
p.m.
5 -- at Texas A&M (ESPNU), 7
p.m.
9 -- *MISSISSIPPI STATE, 7 p.m.
12 -- *at Ole Miss (FSN), 5
p.m.
16 -- *AUBURN, 7 p.m.
19 -- *at Vanderbilt (LF),
Noon
26 -- *ARKANSAS (ESPN Classic),
8 p.m.
30 -- *at Auburn, 7 p.m.
February
2 -- *at Alabama, (LF), 2 p.m.
9 -- * TENNESSEE (LF), 2
p.m.
13 -- *at Florida (LF), 7 p.m.
16 -- *KENTUCKY (LF), Noon
20 -- *at Arkansas (LF), 7 p.m.
23 -- *OLE MISS (FSN), 5 p.m.
27 -- * at South Carolina, 6:30
p.m.
MARCH
2 -- * GEORGIA (LF), 1 p.m.
5 -- * ALABAMA (CST), 7 p.m.
8 -- * at Mississippi State, TBA
13-16 -- SEC Tournament (At
Atlanta) (LF,
CBS)
* denotes SEC games