No. 5 Tennessee basketball heads to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Tuesday to take on the LSU Tigers. Read more for a full Tennessee vs LSU prediction and preview.
No. 5 Tennessee basketball, which has won five of its last six games, will gear up for its second road game in four days when it travels to face unranked LSU on Tuesday night at Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Volunteers are searching for their 10th conference win on the season against the Tigers.
Tennessee has won the past three matchups vs the Tigers.
General Information:
Teams: No. 5 Tennessee (22-5, 9-5) and LSU (14-13, 3-11)
Tip-Off: 9 p.m EST
Watch: SEC Network+
Latest on LSU basketball:
LSU is one of the conference’s few underperforming teams this season. The Tigers have the second-worst record in the SEC, trailing only South Carolina. Head coach Matt McMahon led his team to an 11-2 start, but they have struggled to run the table in a competitive league.
LSU has three SEC victories this season. Two of the wins came in the last three games. The Tigers won 82-79 at Oklahoma on Feb. 15 and 81-67 at South Carolina on Feb. 18, giving them their first league winning streak.
Their most recent game was a 14-point loss against the No. 3 Florida Gators, another top-ranked group in the conference.
Despite having little to play for, LSU demonstrated the ability to remain in games in its defeat to Florida.
“To see them go on a 22-2 run against a team like Florida, it just shows that they still have a lot of fight and they want to play good basketball, they want to be a competitive team,” Vols assistant coach Rod Clark said. “So this is not a game that we’re walking into thinking that it is just gonna be a walk in the park and they [are] just going to lay down. Like we understand that they’re still here to play basketball.”
This season, LSU hits 45.4% of its shots from the field, which is 8.3 percentage points more than Tennessee allows to its opponents (37.1%). The Tigers also rank eighth in the SEC in rebounding at 33.5.
Cam Carter, a senior guard, leads LSU with 16.9 points per game on a 44/40/86 shooting split. Guard Jordan Sears follows with 12.1 points, 2.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game. Jalen Reed, a junior forward, averages 11.1 points and 6.5 rebounds.
Latest on Tennessee basketball:
Tennessee basketball is starting its final four regular-season games at LSU.
Tennessee faced an early nine-point deficit in a top-10 encounter versus then-seventh-ranked Texas A&M but rallied to defeat the Aggies 77-69 on Saturday afternoon.
The Volunteers achieved their first road win over a ranked opponent this season and tied a school record with its seventh AP top-25 victory of the season, including their second top-10 decision of the month. Chaz Lanier led the Vols’ effort with a game- and season-high 30 points, 22 of which came in the first half alone. The fifth-year guard nailed a career-high eight three-pointers, becoming the fourth Volunteer to do so in a single game and the first to score 30 or more points in a top-10 road win in SEC play in the past 20 seasons.
“He’s done a really good job of adjusting,” Clark said. “Coach said it the other day. I think he’s seen every defense that you could see. He’s been taken out, he’s been held, grabbed. It’s funny, every game we always talk about like him having to tuck in his jersey three, four times because he’s pulled every time he comes off a screen or anything.”
His effort won him the SEC Player of the Week award for the third time this season.
Zakai Zeigler was instrumental in leading Tennessee to victory in the second half.
The 5-foot-9 guard made two key plays for the Vols in the last minute of play.
The reigning SEC Defensive Player of the Year blocked a 3-point attempt out of a timeout from Texas A&M’s Wade Taylor IV with 1:02 to play at Reed Arena. Forty-one seconds later, the Tennessee guard came out of a timeout and decisively knocked down the game-sealing 3-pointer to put the final touch on his marvelous second half and ensure the Vols would get arguably their best road win of the season.
Zeigler totaled 16 points, a team-high seven assists, and two steals.
Jordan Gainey, who went 2-for-5 from distance and 4-for-4 from the line, added 14 points, including 10 in the final 6:12, and a game-high three steals.
Tennessee’s 13 3-pointers set a new season best, surpassing the 12 made against Baylor on Nov. 22, 2024, at Nassau, Bahamas.
The Volunteers will seek to maintain their momentum in a favorable road battle against the LSU Tigers on Tuesday.
Tennessee vs LSU prediction: Vols by 14 (76-62)
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