The Wolf Pack men’s basketball team traveled to Baton Rouge to play an exhibition contest against the Division I Louisiana State University Tigers at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in the second game of their 2024-25 campaign.
“LSU is my alma mater, but on Tuesday night, we are enemies,” head coach Donald Reyes said before the game. “We know that on any given night, anybody can be beat, so our job is to go out there and play to the best of our abilities.”
The exhibition game is the first of a six-game stint away from home for the Wolf Pack, which includes a two game road trip to California where they will play against the tenth ranked team in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics in The Master’s University and a contest against Hope International University.
The Wolf Pack are coming into the matchup after an opening season victory against Southern University of New Orleans on Thursday where they never trailed in the second half of play and were led by a 17 point, seven assist performance from junior guard Alex Hammond and 13 points each from redshirt junior Leonard Jackson and redshirt sophomore Zachary Lee.
LSU defeated Loyola by a final score of 110-48, and created havoc on the defensive side of the ball and frustrated the Wolf Pack in the first half, as the Tigers forced 13 turnovers, scored 17 points off of those turnovers, and held Loyola to 14% shooting from the field.
The second half saw the Wolf Pack raise their shooting percentage to 39 percent from the field and 36 percent from beyond the three point line as they were led by graduate senior forward Braelee Albert, who scored eight points to go along with two assists and two rebounds, and junior guard Alex Hammond, who scored seven points and grabbed four rebounds.
For Loyola, this game marks the first of three exhibition games the team will play against NCAA Division I opponents this season, with the other two taking place against the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg on Nov. 12 and Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond on Dec. 20 in their final game of 2024. The team’s next game will come on Nov. 2, when the Wolf Pack travel to Alexandria, LA to play against the LSU Alexandria Generals, who are ranked at No. 12 in the most recent National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics polls.
