NCAA TOURNAMENT

Latest March Madness News, Brackets, Analysis and Updates

Tulane freshman guard Kendall Timmons will miss Wednesday's Conference USA opener at East Carolina because of a lingering rib cartilage injury.

"Kendall started out trying to play through the pain, but it's flared up again," Green Wave Coach Dave Dickerson said. "We really don't know when he will be back."

BATON ROUGE - Marcus Thornton hit a season-high 33 points and Tasmin Mitchell added 24 as LSU blew out Southeastern Louisiana with a strong second half, 90-61, at nthe Maravich Assembly Center Saturday night.

HOUSTON, Texas - LSU played Texas A&M close but the Aggies pulled away on free throws to score a 72-61 victory at the Toyota Center.

LSU (8-1) was down 63-57 when Marcus Thornton, who led all scorers with 23 points, was called for a charging foul with 38.4 seconds left. LSU Coach Trent Johnson didn't like the call and was whistled for his first technical foul as an LSU coach shortly after the Tigers fouled on the inbounds play. From that point on, the Aggies (10-1) hit nine of 10 free throws to make the final margin deceptive.

Tulane broke a two-game losing streak with its best outing of the season Thursday, downing North Carolina A&T, 81-55 at Fogelman Arena.

Tulane hit nine of its first 13 shots and led by as many as 17 points in the first half before settling for a 38-23 halftime advantage.

Robinson Louisme had 16 poiints and Kevin Sims 15 tro lead Tulane (5-4).

An 8-0 run by the Aggies (5-5) got cut the margin to nine earliy in the second half, but Tulane asserted itself again to pull away.

The Wave will next play Monday at George Mason.

,strong>Wave leads at halftime

Tulane outscored the visitors 21-4 over a 10-minute period in the middle of the to take command of its non-conference game against the visiting Aggies.

At halftime, it's 38-23.

Kevin Sims has nine points and Daniel Pickett seven to lead the Wave, which went from a 7-7 tie to a 28-11 advantage thanks to some opportunistic defensive play, aggressive rebounding and good shot selection.

Eric Vainney made his first start of the seaosn aeahd of Robinson Louisme.

BATON ROUGE -- LSU's first big test on the court came a couple of days earlier than expected.

Perhaps with an eye cocked toward Saturday's game with Texas A&M in Houston, the Tigers got a facefull of Nicholls State before escaping with a 68-56 victory at the Maravich Assembly Center on Wednesday night.

BATON ROUGE - Welcome to the Nicholls State Colonels (6-3) vs. LSU Tigers (7-0) live in-game blog at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

We'll be updating this same file throughout the game so keep hitting the refresh button.

BATON ROUGE - LSU jumped on visiting Grambling State and never let up in an 87-41 victory at the Maravich Assembly Center Saturday.

Marcus Thornton scored 18 points and five assists for LSU, Terry Martin had 16 off the bench and Tasmin Mitchell 12. All 12 of LSU's eligible players played and 10 scored points. First-year Coach Trent Johnson emptied his bench with no LSU player going more than 22 minutes.

The victory kept LSU (7-0) unbeaten. Ibrahim Akpele had 12 points to lead Grambling (2-6).

The Associated PressLSU center Chris Johnson dunks on Cal-State Fullerton in a recent game.

Hello, LSU fans, the basketball team is off to a 6-0 start and for the most part has been blowing out the competition.

They're outrebounding the competition - they got Cal-State Fullerton by 29 last week - they're getting balanced scoring and are showing great progress under new coach Trent Johnson.

So, let's chat.

Times-Picayune beat reporter Jim Kleinpeter will be with you at 1:30 p.m. today to talk LSU hoops. He'll talk football if you want to throw questions out in that area as well.