BATON ROUGE – Four Tigers, led by Ben Simmons 22 points, scored in double figures as the No. 19/23 LSU men’s basketball team ran past Kennesaw State in the opening game of the Legends Classic, 91-69, on Monday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
LSU (2-0) shot 50.8 percent from the field, including Simmons’ 11-of-17 effort. Josh Gray saw his first action of the young season and added 16 points, six assists and six rebounds in 22 minutes.
Simmons also had team-highs of nine rebounds, six assists and four steals. Freshman Antonio Blakeney was 4-of-8 shooting for 14 points, while Aaron Epps added a career best 10 points and seven rebounds in 18 minutes.
LSU is now 21-1 in the Johnny Jones era when the Tigers shoot 50 percent or better from the field.
The Tigers used a 28-4 run to increase a 16-15 lead to 24 with less than a minute to play before halftime.
Kennesaw State’s Kendrick Ray scored a game-high 25 points on 7-of-17 shooting from the field and 9-of-13 from the free-throw line. Three days after scoring 34 at Alabama, Owls guard Yonel Brown was held to 4-of-14 shooting and 11 points in 34 minutes.
The Owls were held to just 37.5 percent shooting from the floor and had 17 turnovers, while LSU had 21 assists (for 33 made buckets) and just 8 turnovers with 9 blocks and 13 steals. LSU had a 52-24 advantage in points in the paint including 28-of-the-44 first half points. The Tigers also had a 22-12 advantage in points off turnovers and the bench scored 32 of LSU’s 91 points.
LSU scored on 44-of-77 possessions and turned the ball over on just 10 percent of their possessions.
The Tigers used a 9-0 run to break the game into double figures in the first half as Gray hit Blakeney for a three and then assisted again on an Epps bucket. Epps then got a dunk and Jalyn Patterson took a steal and turned it into a layup to give the Tigers a 25-15 advantage with 10 minutes to go in the first half.
Kennesaw State scored to cut it to eight and then LSU went on a 15-0 run to make it 40-17 with 2:$5 to go in the half. LSU led, 44-21, at the break and led by as many as 29 with 11:57 to go in the game.
Next up for LSU is game 2 of the local round of the Legends Classic, as South Alabama visits the Maravich Center for an 8 p.m. CT tip on Thursday, Nov. 19. The game will be televised by the SEC Network and streamed on SEC Network+. The radio broadcast will be available on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network.
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