BATON ROUGE — Two LSU sophomores, football quarterback Rohan Davey and basketball forward Stromile Swift were named Southeastern Conference Players of the Week for their efforts this past weekend in their respective sports.
Davey, from Miami, was named the SEC’s Offensive Football Player of the Week for his efforts in leading the Tiger football team to a 35-10 decision over Arkansas on Friday.
Swift, from Shreveport, was named the league’s basketball Player of the Week after earning tournament MVP honors in helping lead the Tigers to three wins and the championship of the Hawaii Thanksgiving Classic this weekend in Honolulu.
It marked the first player of the week nod this season in football for LSU and the first in basketball since Ronnie Henderson won the honor on Feb. 4, 1996.
Davey came off the bench in the second quarter to throw three touchdown passes as LSU scored 28 unanswered points after Arkansas had taken a 3-0 lead. Davey threw touchdown strikes of 67 and 60 yards to receiver Reggie Robinson and also had a 48-yard touchdown pass to tailback Rondell Mealey.
For the game, Davey completed 10-of-12 passes for 224 yards. His completion percentage of .833 was the third best in school history for a minimum of 10 pass attempts.
Swift’s three games in the Hawaii tournament proved to be his coming out party for the second-year player who joined the team only two days before the third SEC game a season ago.
In last Friday’s 87-80 win over Oakland, Swift had 21 points on 10-of-12 field goal shooting, 1-of-1 at the free throw line and eight rebounds in 29 minutes. He followed that on Saturday with a career high 33 points, making 11-of-15 field goal attempts and 11-of-13 at the free throw line, while pulling down 13 boards in 26 minutes of a 103-86 triumph over Wyoming.
In Sunday’s championship 95-85 win over Fresno State, Swift had 19 points, hitting 7-of-10 field goals and 5-of-7 free throws, with five rebounds and five blocked shots in 35 minutes.
For the tournament, Swift averaged 24.3 points, hitting 28-of-37 field goal attempts (75.7 percent), 17-of-21 free throws (80.9 percent), with 26 rebounds (8.7 a game) and six blocks (2.0 a game) in 90 minutes of playing time.
The LSU men’s basketball team will next see action following the conclusion of semester final exams on Saturday, Dec. 11, against Alcorn State at 7 p.m. in the Maravich Assembly Center.