LSU and Louisiana Tech are going to play basketball tonight in the Maravich Assembly Center and it or might not be a great game. But it’s got very little chance of being as good of a game as the one on Dec. 6, 1988, when these two teams played. It was their first meeting in 43 years.

Throughout the 1980s, I had been in countless “discussions” about who was the better team during that decade. They were constantly compared to each other, which was easy to do because they never played.

Until they did.

I covered hundreds of games during my sportswriting career and to this day, it remains one of the most memorable events I ever saw. Tech won 111-109 in overtime and I remember it like it was yesterday. I think.

So I’m going to try to remember as many things as I can without looking them up. Then, I’ll go back and fact check myself.

** I remember it was the final game of a six-day road trip for Tech. The Bulldogs had been in Syracuse for a tournament, then flew to Baton Rouge for this game before heading home. Tech had taken Syracuse to overtime two days earlier. (All correct.)

** I remember Chris Jackson scoring 49 points and this was before anyone had really heard of Chris Jackson. The next weekend, he opened the eyes of college basketball when he scored 52 against Florida. The Tech game was a preview of things to come. He was unstoppable that night against Tech. (Jackson had 48 points against Tech and then 53 against Florida … that’s pretty close.)

** I remember Tech’s Randy White was just as unstoppable, scoring 42 points and dominating inside. He would go on to be a first round draft pick, but he was never better than on this night. (White had 35, however he did outscore LSU’s two centers 35-0.)

** I remember two role players having key moments in the game. With the score tied, Lyle Mouton, perhaps LSU’s worst offensive player, took the final shot in regulation. Apparently someone forgot to introduce him to Chris Jackson. And I remember Tech point guard Brett Guillory making two clutch free throws in overtime to ice the game. (LSU didn’t get a shot off at the end of regulation; Mouton’s miss came at the end of overtime. Meanwhile, Guillory made six straight free throws in overtime.)

** I remember the late Tech Coach Tommy Joe Eagles saying it was the most important win of his basketball coaching career. Tommy Joe was one of my favorite people I ever dealt with, but he was also given to a bit of hyperbole now and then. I remember the LSU radio crew remarking off the air “how can he possible say that?” They didn’t know that this wasn’t just another game to Tommy Joe. (I’ll just say this; ask anyone who knew Tommy Joe Eagles if that is correct.)

One of my best friends and a marvelous musician and carpenter and the most interesting dude I know, Matth (with an “h,” which adds to the interest, because he doesn’t know why it’s there either), responded to a recent effort about Tony Joe White’s unfortunate passing as Tony Joe was the author of “Poke Salad Annie,” one of our standards when Matth and me were in a band, actually several ‘bands,’ for lack of a better term, a long time ago.

“Jaybo (another numb-nuts friend who pilots planes all over the world, God help us all) and me were driving through Virginia the day he died,” Matth wrote to me.” I remember that his name came up – I think it was ‘cause Jaybo was singing some of Rainy Night in Georgia – the two or three lines that he knows.  So we sang some Polk Salad Annie – the two or three lines that I know.”

Matth continued:

“I wonder – why did he use the spelling ‘Polk’?  It was always poke salad (or sallet, for the more uppity portion of the crowd that might cook up a mess of it).  Dad used to bring home pokeweed that grew along the railroad tracks out by the airport.  It was always poke salad to us.  We didn’t have to eat it – Dad just kept that part of his past alive.  Brought dandelion greens home from the elementary school playground and cooked them.  I preferred the poke salad.  He actually used poke as a landscaping variety when he moved to SC.  Had two big pokeweeds growing right in front of the house, where normal folks would put a Japanese maple or something.

“And the eleventh President’s name wasn’t “James Poke”.  At least not in polite company.  And I don’t remember ever hearing you enunciate the “L” when we did the song.  ‘Course, maybe I was slurring your words.”

Matth has a solid point. On the album, the words typed on there are “Polk Salad Annie.” When I sang it and we played it, it was “Poke” Salad Annie. But Tony Joe wrote it, so he decides.

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