Louisiana State @ Texas preview

Last Meeting ( Dec 10, 2006 ) Louisiana State 75, Texas 76

Texas will try to bounce back from its biggest loss in the Skaka Smart era on Saturday afternoon when it hosts Southeastern Conference-leading LSU in the Big 12/SEC Basketball Challenge. The Longhorns come in off a 97-59 thumping at No. 15 West Virginia on Monday, a game that they trailed by as many as 42 points in the second half while flirting with breaking the record for the worst loss in school history, a 50-point setback to UCLA in 1971.

The ugly loss to the Mountaineers warmed up an already warm hot seat for Smart who is now 22-38 over the last four seasons in Big 12 play and a ho-hum 83-72 in five seasons overall in Austin. It's not nearly what Longhorn basketball fans expected when they hired Smart away from VCU in April of 2015 after he led the Rams to an overall record of 163-56 (.744) and five NCAA Tournament appearances, including a Final Four berth in 2011. LSU coach Will Wade was an assistant for Smart at VCU and replaced him as head coach for two seasons there before taking the job with the Tigers in March of 2017. "I've worked with him longer than anybody else I've worked for as an assistant, so a lot of the things we do in our program are built around what he does," Wade said. "Whatever their best is, we're going to see that on Saturday. They're going to rally around him, and they're going to play hard for him and he's going to have them going."

TIME: 2 p.m. ET. TV: ESPN

ABOUT LSU (14-4): The Tigers have won seven in a row since a 70-68 loss to USC in the Dec. 21 Basketball Hall of Fame Classic at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Five players are averaging in double figures led by senior guard Skylar Mays (16.1) who also is averaging 4.7 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.1 steals per game while shooting 36.6 percent from 3-point range. Athletic 6-6 forward Emmitt Williams is second in scoring (13.7) and had a team-high 19 points in Tuesday night's 84-82 home win over Florida, the Tigers' fifth straight victory by four points or fewer, while Mays added 18 points, including two crucial free throws with 10 seconds left which proved to be the game-winning points.

ABOUT TEXAS (12-6): Three of the Longhorns' conference losses have come to teams ranked in the top 15 including a 59-44 road loss at No. 1 Baylor and a 66-57 home loss to No. 3 Kansas , a game Texas led by as many seven points early in the second half. Junior guard Matt Coleman III leads a balanced scoring attack with an average of 12.2 points and 4.3 assists per game and is shooting 44.1-percent (30-of-68) from 3-point range. Guards Courtney Ramey (10.7 points), Jase Febres (10.4) and Andrew Jones (10.3) also are averaging in double-digits while 6-9 junior forward Jericho Sims leads the team in rebounding (7.8) while also averaging 9.3 points per game.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. LSU leads the series, 19-11, but this is the first meeting since Dec. 10, 2006, when the Longhorns, led by the freshman tandem of Kevin Durant and D.J. Augustin, upset the No. 9 ranked Tigers, 76-75, in overtime in a game played in Houston.

2. Texas was outrebounded 53-25, in the loss at West Virginia with the Mountaineers finishing with edges of 27-4 in second-chance points and 52-18 in points in the paint.

3. The Longhorns are 3-0 in home games as part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge, twice defeating Vanderbilt in 2013 and 2016 and also beating Ole Miss in 2018.

PREDICTION: Texas 74, LSU 70