BATON ROUGE — Tim Quarterman, Ben Simmons and Craig Victor II each posted double doubles, as the LSU men’s basketball team rolled past No. 9 Kentucky, 85-67, on Tuesday night in the Maravich Center.
LSU (9-5, 2-0 SEC) posted its largest margin of victory over Kentucky (11-3, 1-1 SEC) since Feb. 2, 1992, behind quality rebounding, solid defense and a packed crowd of 13,573 – the third-largest since the 2006 arena renovation.
Tonight’s win was LSU’s first over an opponent ranked inside the top 9 in the nation since Feb. 24, 2007, against No. 3 Florida. It was LSU’s 77th win over a ranked opponent in the Associated Press Top 25 poll and the 37th against a team ranked in the top 10. Coach Johnny Jones is now 5-6 as the LSU head coach against ranked teams.
Quarterman led the way with 21 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, while Simmons added 14 points and 10 assists in 27 minutes of play. Victor did the dirty work at the free throw line, scoring nine of his 15 points while adding 12 rebounds.
LSU outrebounded Kentucky, 46-32, and shot nearly 50 percent from the field (30 of 61). For another game, the Tigers were over 50 percent from the field in the final 20 minutes, hitting 16-of-31 shots.
Kentucky, which had its 22-game SEC winning streak snapped, was led by Tyler Ulis (23 points) and Jamal Murray (21 points), who accounted for 16 of the Wildcats’ 24 field goals. The rest were 8-of-25 shooting. Kentucky made only 12 of 23 free throws, while LSU was 19 of 30.
Kentucky scored the first two points of the game on two free throws by Ulis 24 seconds of the game, but never led again. LSU scored the next six points on a layup by Quarterman, a jumper by Victor and a layup by Antonio Blakeney.
The lead reached nine points on a three-pointer by Aaron Epps with 10 minutes to go in the first half, 17-8, and LSU took its first double digit lead at 11 points, 33-22, on a trey by Keith Hornsby at the 2:26 mark. The margin ballooned to as much as 14 before Kentucky scored the final four points of the half to lead at the break, 37-27.
LSU led by 14 twice in the first five minutes, both times on buckets by Quarterman at 47-33 and 49-35. Kentucky would rally and make things interesting as LSU cut the lead twice to five at 51-46 and 53-48. On LSU’s next possession following the latter score, Victor missed a shot and Kentucky grabbed the rebound and called time out. But Kentucky missed a jumper and a layup and the Quarterman hit a three to push the LSU lead back out to 56-48 with 11:22 to play.
Kentucky’s last good push when they cut the margin to 58-54 with 9:36 to play on a layup by Alex Poythress. But LSU answered right back with another Quarterman three and that was Kentucky’s last best chance.
LSU’s biggest lead of 18 came in the final 1:15 of the contest and at the end of the game as the Tigers led for a grand total of 37:15.
LSU posted a 44-24 advantage in points in the paint and a 22-10 advantage in points off turnovers. Kentucky committed 14 turnovers and had just eight assists for its 24 baskets while LSU had just 9 turnovers and had 17 assists for its 30 baskets.
The Tigers return to action on Saturday, Jan. 9, at 12:30 p.m. CT, against Florida in Gainesville. The game will be televised on CBS and broadcast on the LSU Sports Radio Network beginning with pregame at 12 p.m.
LSU vs. No. 9 Kentucky
January 5, 2016
Head Coach Johnny Jones
Opening Statement …
“Wow. It was a phenomenal crowd out there tonight, 13,500-plus. We couldn’t ask for a better game for our fans that came out tonight and gave us an opportunity to energize their basketball team. It gave us the energy we needed. Our guys understand the impact this game had, playing a team like Kentucky, who’s done a tremendous job and has certainly carried the torch for our league. What a great job that John Calipari has done with this team so far this year with the way that they’ve played and what he’s done in the past. For our team to have the opportunity to play like that against a team that was ranked preseason No. 1 in the country and picked first in our league says a lot about the way this team has played over the last week. We certainly don’t take it for granted. They are a good team, but there are areas we need to continue to grow. We are excited about it but look forward to the challenges that are in front of us, heading to Florida over the weekend.”
On the defensive tone-setting during the first half …
“Teaching these guys and learning. These guys are trying to get better. That’s a huge part of it. I don’t think it should be overlooked that these guys have done a tremendous job of trying to buy in. You have to believe to buy in. They believed in what we were doing. They’ve done a tremendous job of competing and playing at a high level. The other thing for us is that you can’t overlook Ben (Simmons) going to the bench early and those guys continuing to stay focused out there—their attention to detail on the floor on both ends and did not get rattled at all. They did a tremendous job of standing course.”
On the growth of the team …
“The team is growing, but had this happened a month ago before Keith (Hornsby) and Craig (Victor II), I’m not sure exactly which way we would have possibly turned. With those guys, I think we have continued to grow as a team. Ben (Simmons) did a great job of staying engaged while he was over there and really had an impact there in the second half. You’re absolutely right. Should something happen throughout the game, these guys know and understand they can play. They feel very confident. They were a very confident team tonight.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
Guard Tim Quarterman
On what got into him …
“I just went out there trying to be aggressive for my team. I tried to make plays out there. I was aggressive on the offensive end of the floor. I just wanted to go out there and play good team defense. I just tried to help us get the win tonight. I didn’t make all of the right plays tonight but I made enough to help our team get the victory.”
On what got into him at practice …
“It’s just team confidence. All of us guys have confidence in each other. We’ve built a lot of team chemistry. All of the losses we took earlier this season helped us as a team and humbled us. We are looking forward to the future. Florida is the next game and we are just looking ahead.”
On what has changed over the last week …
It’s all about sacrifices. Everyone is making sacrifices for the wins. We have a lot of scorers on our team, but it’s all about making the right play. I think we have made a lot of sacrifices for each other and it’s paying off.”
On attacking…
“It just made it easy to make plays to know that their bigs weren’t going to contest shots. It was a whole team effort. Craig and Ben played big tonight. I think it was whole team effort and a lot of guys played off the bench. It was the whole team tonight.”
Point Forward Ben Simmons
On sitting through foul trouble …
“I was happy we were up. All I really care about is winning. To see those guys out there and keeping the lead was big.”
On the defensive performance tonight …
“I think we played a lot better tonight. We were excited to play against Kentucky due to the history between the teams. I think everyone really stepped up and focused tonight.”
On what has changed over the last week …
“We have come together as team. We are gelling. Everyone got sick of what was happening and we all laid it out. We put our goals down and everyone has really stepped up and contributed. Everyone has to have the same goal and that’s to be the best team we can be.”
Forward Craig Victor II
On what the win means …
“It was a big win. I remember being here last year before the game. It was an opportunity and we didn’t make the most of it. It was an opportunity and we played together as a team. I’m proud that we won. I’m just looking forward to the next game. This game is behind us now. We are looking forward to going to Florida and do what we do to have to win.”
On getting them in foul trouble …
“Ben (Simmons) and I knew that we had to play physical. We have to play on the defensive side as well and block out. Boxing out and creating havoc under the goal was a big key for us.”
KENTUCKY HEAD COACH JOHN CALIPARI
Opening Statement…
“Good job by LSU, their players and their coaching staff. What a great environment. We weren’t up for the challenge. We weren’t ready to compete at the level they competed at, especially our inside people. We didn’t get very much from anybody in there except a lot of fouls. Give credit to LSU. They played well.”
On what went wrong for Kentucky’s players…
“I don’t know. You would have to ask them. They didn’t compete like they needed to. I know that.”
On LSU’s physicality tonight…
“We weren’t very good this game, but that’s the great thing about college basketball. You try to get better every week. You take a step back, learn and watch the tape to figure out what we can do better.”
On Ben Simmons taking attention away from other LSU players…
“Those other guys are good. I said that prior to this game. If you are spending all of your time worrying about him (Ben Simmons), you are forgetting about Keith Hornsby, who made big three’s against us. You miss the inside people with (Craig) Victor making his plays. The guards do their thing. Johnny (Jones) has a good team and has them playing well.”
On Kentucky’s offense struggling tonight…
“They were physical, and we did not set good screens. We ended up playing a lot on the perimeter. We started the second half and said we are throwing it in to the post. We don’t care what happens. Obviously that didn’t work. We will go back to the drawing board and figure it out. We can’t afford to have two or three guys not play well, like give you doughnuts. We’re not that good. It forces other guys to try to do too much. Then when the game gets close within four or five points, they’re trying to do too much. They’re not making winning plays. They’re just trying to make plays. That’s kind of what happened here.”
Kentucky Player Quotes
Guard Jamal Murray
On team effort…
“We just have to play more consistent. I think the other team was fired up, but we don’t understand that yet. That’s our fault, not Coach’s (Calipari) fault anymore. We have to push this team to fight more to come up with balls. ”
On Mychal Mulder’s performance…
“We need everyone to play like that.”
On moving forward …
“As a leader and point guard, I think we need to do a better job of getting this team more organized and get us more prepared for games like this when teams are fired up and excited to play us.”
Guard Tyler Ulis
On team’s performance tonight…
“Guys came out and didn’t really want to play, didn’t play that hard. Basically, seems like no one played to win.”
…
“It’s not good as a team – we have to all play. We all have to go out there and give 100 percent effort, just like we did the last couple of games. We got away from that again. We didn’t have any energy, so we lost. ”
…
“I feel like we came out a little scared it seems, but I have to get on guys a little more with that and step up as a leader.”
On LSU’s team…
“We understood they had some good players. His supporting cast is good. The guys can shoot the ball, score the ball, and make good decisions. But it wasn’t them, it was us as a team not playing hard.”