BATON ROUGE – The LSU Tigers, coming off an impressive 90-82 road win Saturday night at Vanderbilt in its Southeastern Conference opener, looks to continue to make an early mark in the league when the Tigers host nationally-ranked Kentucky in an 8 p.m. game at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Super Tuesday contest will be broadcast on ESPN with Brad Nessler, Jay Bilas and Shannon Spake. The radio broadcast will be available on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Eagle 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) with the “Voice of the Tigers” Jim Hawthorne, Ricky Blanton and host Kevin Ford.
Pre-sold tickets to the game are sold out. However, similar to baseball games at Alex Box, a limited number of walk-up tickets may go on sale at or near tipoff based on seating availability.
The Tigers are 8-5 and 1-0 in the league, while Kentucky, ranked ninth in the AP poll and eighth in the USA Today Coaches Poll, is 11-2 and 1-0 in the league after an 83-61 win at Rupp Arena on Saturday.
This will mark the third straight season the teams have met in Baton Rouge with LSU winning in 2014 in the “Ice Dome” game 87-82 and then last year Kentucky rallied late to win 71-69.
The Tigers had a tremendous effort on Saturday with Ben Simmons earning both Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year and Louisiana Sports Writers Association Player of the Week after scoring his fourth straight 20-point game of 36 points, 14 rebounds and four assists. He was 10-of-15 from the field and 16-of-19 from the free throw line.
Simmons becomes the first player since Charles Carmouche in 2013 to have four straight 20-plus point games.
LSU is expected to keep its lineup that has been in place for a few games of Simmons at point forward with sophomore forward Craig Victor II and guards senior Keith Hornsby, junior Tim Quarterman and freshman Antonio Blakeney. Victor (5 games) and Hornsby (6 games) have scored in double figures each of the games since they returned to play for LSU.
Kentucky is led by Jamal Murray with 16.8 points per game, while Tyler Ulis averaging 13.4 points a game and Isaiah Briscoe 11.0. Ulis leads the team at 5.9 assists per game and is averaging 7.5 assists over his last six games.
Coach Johnny Jones met with the media on Monday and here are some of his comments from the session:
Opening Statement…
“I thought our guys did a tremendous job on Saturday night in a great environment in Memorial Gymnasium, playing against a very good Vanderbilt basketball team. I thought it was fitting and a great opportunity for us going into a very tough home game against one of the top teams in the country in Kentucky. The Vandy game served a purpose for us on both ends of the floor. What we were able to do offensively against a very tough, defensive-minded basketball team if you look at their numbers and look at what they’ve been able to do all year. Defensively, I thought we did an excellent job against a very efficient basketball team on the offensive end of the floor. It was great for us because of the confidence we will have, hopefully, going into the game on Tuesday. Although Ben Simmons had a great game, it was a great team effort by all of our guys in the way that they played from start to finish and the way that they were able to finish the game, making good defensive stops and making plays on the offensive end in terms of executing.”
On Antonio Blakeney and Brandon Sampson…
“I’m really pleased with the effort Antonio Blakeney has made from day one to the other night in what he has been able to do on the defensive end of the floor. He’s done a great job in terms of playing with a great deal of intensity, understanding more concepts and what we are asking him to do has really helped us on the floor. We know he came in a tremendous scorer, and we feel that it will come. He did that at the beginning of the year, made plays for us. We think it’s a matter of time before he gets back into the offensive flow. In the meantime, we think he’s really growing as an offensive player. Brandon (Sampson) has been injured, and that’s been slowing him a bit. We are excited when he gets back healthy what he will be able to provide for us as well.”
On playing Kentucky…
“We will certainly have our work cut out for us. They’re returning guys from a team that won 38 games and went to the Final Four. There’s some experience on that team. They’ve had another tremendous recruiting class with Isaiah Briscoe and Jamal Murray, and those guys coming in are terrific scorers and really good, solid players. Alex Poythress has done a tremendous job in the way that he is playing right now. They have a great balance. We have a lot of guys we are going to have to deal with on Tuesday.”
On defense improving…
“It certainly helped … It’s more of our team defense that’s been able to step up and allowed us to become better. They’ve done a better job of trusting each other in the way that they’ve played with a certain intensity level. Craig (Victor II) and Keith (Hornsby) have helped us because of their aggressiveness, mentality and the size and strength they’ve been able to play with. It’s allowed us to do some things a little bit differently defensively. Because of the strength we have, we can get away with certain things.”