NICEVILLE, Florida – The LSU men’s basketball team hopes to continue its success in the Emerald Coast Classic as the Tigers return to this location for the 2025 version of the event.
LSU, the 2022 tournament champions, will take on Drake Friday night at 8:30 p.m. CST at the Raider Arena at Northwest Florida State College in the second game of the doubleheader session, following Georgia Tech and DePaul.
The LSU contest will be broadcast on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network with JD Byars (who called last year’s two games in the Greenbrier Classic) sitting in for Chris Blair for the weekend games. Former LSU Coach John Brady will join Byars for the broadcasts (Guaranty Media flagship in Baton Rouge, Eagle 98.1 FM).
CBS Sports Network will have the television broadcast of the games with Alex Del Barrio and Mike O’Donnell.
LSU is returning to the Classic for the second time, having won the tournament title in 2022 with an overtime win over Penn State and a 75-61 win over Wake Forest when Tari Eason was named the Most Outstanding Player in the event.
The Tigers of 2025-26 are 5-0 on the young season, with Drake coming in after two straight wins at 4-2.
LSU practiced for 90 minutes at the Arena on Thursday and was scheduled to celebrate Thanksgiving at the Hilton Sandestin where the team is staying joining family and friends for the traditional meal.
LSU is coming off a season opening five-game homestand in 17 days and will now be away from the Maravich Center for games until Dec. 19. The Emerald Coast Classic starts a five-game stretch that will also include a road game at Boston College (Dec. 3) and neutral site games at Dickie’s Arena in Fort Worth (Dec. 7 vs. Texas Tech) and the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans (Dec. 13 vs. SMU).
“I think as you look to the first five games, we got out of it what I had hoped,” said LSU Coach Matt McMahon. “First off, I wanted to schedule with an opportunity to get Jalen Reed back in the mix, and that worked out perfectly with him getting back ahead of schedule from injury. Then I wanted to really start to develop and built the chemistry of our team, and I thought we made some strides there.”
The Tigers have been led by Mike Nwoko at 19.0 points per game, leading the SEC in field goal percentage at 76.0 percent (38-of-50). He is fourth in the league in scoring.
Point guard Dedan Thomas Jr., became the first LSU player since 2022 to record double figure assists as he posted 11 in the 99-73 win last Friday over Omaha. He leads the league in assists average and is currently fifth in Division I NCAA stats. He has not posted a turnover in the last two games.
“I think, ultimately, you want to keep getting better as a team,” said Coach McMahon. “But there are some specific areas where I’d like to see improvement. I think on the defensive side of the ball, from a field goal percentage standpoint, you are where you want to be, 38 percent defensively; we’ve given up two many offensive rebounds and haven’t forced many turnovers, so that’s created extra possessions for our opponents, and I’d like to see us make some progress in those areas.”
Drake won 31 games a year ago, advancing to the NCAA Tournament Round of 32. The Bulldogs come into the tournament off a 98-52 win over Buena Vista last Friday.
Jalen Quinn leads Drake in scoring at 14.8 points per game with Okku Federiko at 13.5, Wilguens Exacte at 10.5 points and Braden Appelhans at 10.3 a game.
Eric Henderson is in his first year as head coach at Drake, coming to the school after six years as head coach at South Dakota State.
LSU will play either DePaul or Georgia Tech on Saturday at either 3 (day 1 losers) or 6 p.m. (day 1 winners). The 3 p.m. game will be streamed on www.EmeraldCoastTV.com/ecc25, while the 6 p.m. game will be broadcast on the CBS Sports Network. The LSU Sports Radio Network broadcast in Baton Rouge will move to Guaranty Media affiliate 100.7 FM The Tiger for Saturday’s game.
