BATON ROUGE — Former LSU men’s basketball stars Chris Jackson and Shaquille O’Neal were named Tuesday night to the ESPN Silver Anniversary Team for the Southeastern Conference announced at halftime of the Tennessee-Kentucky basketball game.
Jackson and O’Neal were part of a five-member team named by the network in the SEC and in the other major conferences they regular cover as part of the 25th anniversary season of college basketball on the all-sports network. The other members of the team chosen by the analysts at ESPN included Chuck Person of Auburn, Allan Houston of Tennessee and Jamal Mashburn of Kentucky.
Jackson, who played for LSU during the 1989 and 1990 seasons, was best known for a fabulous freshman season in which he set the NCAA freshman scoring record. In his ESPN debut at Florida in his fifth career game, Jackson scored 53 to lead LSU to a 111-101 win at Gainesville.
O’Neal, who played at LSU during the 1990, 1991 and 1992 seasons, also had some big moments on ESPN in his three years in which he earned multiple All-American honors and was the 1991 National Player of the Year. O’Neal is one of three LSU basketball players to have his number retired at LSU.
Person of Auburn was the school’s all-time leader in scoring and field goals made, Houston was Tennessee’s all-time leading scorer and Mashburn was a 1993 All-American who was a big factor in Kentucky rise under Rick Pitino.