BATON ROUGE – LSU freshman Ben Simmons added more his résumé as he was advanced to another mid-season watch list, this time the Mid-Season List for the prestigious Naismith Award.
The Naismith Award was founded by the Atlanta Tipoff Club to recognize accomplished athletes in college basketball. Named in honor of Dr. James Naismith, the creator of the game of basketball, the first Naismith trophy was awarded in 1969 to UCLA’s Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The trophy was sculpted by Marty C. Dawe of Atlanta and has become among the most prestigious national honors awarded each year to top basketball players in the nation.
Simmons who with the Tigers will host Texas A&M Saturday at noon at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on CBS Sports and the LSU Sports Radio Network, is one of four freshman on the mid-season list of 35 players. The other freshman are Brandon Ingram of Duke, Jamal Murray of Kentucky and Trevon Bluiett of Xavier.
Simmons and Murray are two of the four representatives of the Southeastern Conference, joining Kentucky sophomore Tyler Ulis and Texas A&M senior Jalen Jones.
The award is given out at the end of the season.