TIGER RAG NEWS SERVICES
A date for LSU’s non-conference matchup with men’s basketball powerhouse Houston has been set. The Tigers will travel to Houston to face the Cougars on Sunday, Dec. 13, in Houston’s Toyota Center, the downtown home of the Houston Rockets.
LSU is coming off back-to-back losing seasons of 14-18 (3-15 Southeastern Conference) and 15-17 (3-15 SEC) and have failed to reach the NCAA tournament since 2022.
Houston coach Kelvin Sampson’s Cougars have reached at least the Sweet 16 of the last seven NCAA Tournaments and recorded 30 wins or more in the last five seasons. Houston reached the national championship game in the 2024-25 season before losing to Florida. Sampson, 70, took Houston to the Final Four in the 2020-21 season and to the Elite Eight in 2021-22.
LSU is 9-11 all-time against the Cougars. The last meeting between the two programs was on Dec.12, 2019, which the Tigers lost 82-76 under coach Will Wade during his first term with the Tigers from 2017-22. He is back at LSU, which fired him for NCAA violations before he spent two seasons at McNeese State (2023-24 and 2024-25) and one at at North Carolina State last season.
Wade will face a former Tiger from former coach Matt McMahon’s 2025-26 team in talented point guard Dedan Thomas Jr., who transferred to Houston after this past season. Thomas (6-foot-1, 178) led the Tigers with 6.5 assists and 15.3 points a game before a foot injury in the SEC opener at Texas A&M eventually ended his season weeks later. He will be the only player from the LSU 2025-26 roster on the court in Houston.
Houston will be a massive test for Wade’s patchwork roster of incoming transfers and overseas professionals, most of whom have not been able to get eligible and sign with the Tigers yet.
Unlike McMahon, Wade is curating a difficult non-conference schedule that could better prepare his squad for SEC play and score points with the NCAA Tournament selection committee.
LSU will play at NCAA Tournament power Gonzaga in Spokane, Washington, on Nov. 14. Gonzaga has been listed in the Associated Press preseason top 25 every year since 2009. The Tigers will also compete in the Palm Springs Classic. Nov. 21-26 against Arizona State, USC and SMU.
The Tigers round out the non-conference schedule with home games against UNO (Nov. 3), Texas Southern (Nov. 6), Louisiana Tech (Nov. 9), Louisiana-Monroe (Nov. 17), Queens University (Nov. 20), Hofstra (Dec. 5), High Point (Dec. 18), Louisiana-Lafayette (Dec. 22) and Washington State (Dec. 28).
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