Tigers Basketball Team Off to Syracuse for First ACC/SEC Challenge Game Tuesday

BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s basketball team, riding a three-game winning streak, travels to Syracuse, New York, to take on the Orange Tuesday night in an opening night game of the ACC/SEC Challenge series.

The Tigers and Syracuse will tip off just after 6 p.m. CT at the JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse. Chris Blair and John Brady will have the call of the game on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Guaranty Media flagship Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and Kevin Brown and Chris Spatola will call the game on ESPN2.

There will be seven men’s games on Tuesday and seven more on Wednesday in this inaugural challenge year with the women taking part in a similar series on Wednesday and Thursday.

The men’s matchups are as follows (times CST):

Tuesday
LSU at Syracuse, 6 p.m.
Miss. State at Georgia Tech, 6 p.m.
Notre Dame at South Carolina, 6 p.m.
Miami at Kentucky, 6:30 p.m.
Missouri at Pittsburgh, 6:30 p.m.
North Carolina State at Ole Miss, 8 p.m.
Clemson at Alabama, 8:30 p.m.

Wednesday
Tennessee at North Carolina, 6:15 p.m.
Texas A&M at Virginia, 6:15 p.m.
Florida at Wake Forest, 6:15 p.m.
Duke at Arkansas, 8:15 p.m.
Virginia Tech at Auburn, 8:15 p.m.
Georgia at Florida State, 8:15 p.m.
Boston College at Vanderbilt, 8:15 p.m.

The Tigers will be playing Syracuse for the first time since a 1985 trip to the now Carrier Dome, which Syracuse won, 76-64.

LSU is 4-6 in the so-called “Challenge” series since 2007, first with the Big East and then with the Big 12. LSU’s last win was a road win in 2919 at Texas, 69-67. Three of LSU’s series wins came on the road, defeating Rutgers, 66-60, at Piscataway, New Jersey in 2011 when they were in the Big East and in 2014, defeating nationally ranked West Virginia, 74-73, in Morgantown in their first appearance in the SEC series with the Big 12.

LSU is 4-2 after a 75-63 win over North Florida on Friday night in the Maravich Center. The Tigers played one of their best defensive games for the first 27 minutes before North Florida got their shooting touch behind the arc. Will Baker had 18 points, while Jordan Wright had 15 points. Tyrell Ward scored 14 and Mike Williams had 11 points and six steals.

Syracuse is also 4-2 after a 1-2 Thanksgiving week in Honolulu in the Maui Invitational. The Orange lost to Tennessee, 73-56, and Gonzaga, 76-57, before defeating Chaminade, 105-56. Judah Mintz leads Syracuse with an 18.3 points per game average, while Chris Bell comes in at 13.7 and J. J. Starling averages 12.7 points.

Former star player and longtime assistant coach Adrian Autry is in his first season as the head coach at the school.

LSU will return to Baton Rouge to play at home on Friday against Southeastern at 7 p.m. in the Maravich Center. Tickets are available at LSUTix.net.