BATON ROUGE – After not having a league player of the week for the last two years, a Tiger men’s basketball player earned the honor for the second time in three weeks as LSU center Justin Hamilton was named the Southeastern Conference Player of the Week as announced by the league office on Monday.
Hamilton had back-to-back 20-point plus games as LSU narrowly lost to nationally-ranked Virginia last Monday and then scored an impressive 26-point win over Ole Miss on Saturday in the Southeastern Conference opener at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Hamilton, a 7-foot, 260-pound junior center from Alpine, Utah, averaged 22 points, 12.5 rebounds, three blocks and 1.5 steals in games against 21st-ranked Virginia and Ole Miss. Hamilton had 21 points, nine rebounds and four blocks against the Cavaliers. He led the Tigers to a win in their SEC opener with 23 points, 16 rebounds, two blocks and a steal against Ole Miss. He shot 69.2 percent (18-of-26) from the field on the week, including a 9-of-12 (.750) effort against Ole Miss. Ten of his 25 rebounds in the two games came on the offensive end of the floor
Hamilton became the first player since Tasmin Mitchell in December 2009 to have a 20-point, 15-rebound game for the Tigers in the win against Ole Miss.
Ralston Turner was the first LSU player this season to receive SEC POW honors on Dec. 26 for his 22-point effort in the Tigers win against No. 10 Marquette.
LSU (11-4, 1-0) will play twice on the road this week in the league as it begins a stretch of four games in five on the road. LSU travels to Tuscaloosa for a Wednesday 8 p.m. contest(CSS/COX4) against at Alabama and then travels to Fayetteville to face Arkansas on Saturday at 8 p.m. (FSN).
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