So this year I decided to follow college bball closer than I have in 20 years. Growing up college bball was my favorite sport by far, up until around my mid 20s. Knew every major conference team's starting lineup and many of the lineups of lesser teams as well. Could recite the top 40 HS prospects and their college choices off the top of my head. I had 4 teams that I followed...DePaul, Indiana, LSU and Duke. Over the years got disgusted with Duke so don't like them anymore. Stopped caring about Indiana as well. Gave up on DePaul a long time ago. That leaves LSU.

So took a look and noticed that LSU had the #1 rated draft prospect in the country in freshman Ben Simmons. Figured I give them a shot. Started recording all their games. About halfway through the season it became obvious that several players on the team were clearly jealous of Simmons. They wouldn't give him the ball. Also became obvious that their coach is a moron since he never insisted that they give SImmons the ball. If you haven't seen Simmons play you should, the kid is the real deal. 6'10, unstopable in the post and running the point. Can't shoot a mid range jumper to save his life, but doesn't need to since he gets to the hole at will and always dishes to the open guy if he draws double coverage. Basically, the ball should go through him on EVERY possession, that's how good he is.

Finally the tv announcers have picked up on this as well and last couple games they spent the whole game calling out his teammates and coach for not getting him the ball. Even said there must be jealousy involved since no other way to explain it. A couple recent games have been so bad even the announcers have commented on what a dysfunctional mess they are. Now they are on the verge of being one of only 4 teams in college bball history to have the #1 pick and not make the tournament.

What a shame that no one is gonna get to see this kid play on the biggest stage..all cause some pissed off seniors won't give him the ball.

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Scales, Macklin, Green, and Green. Some damn good teams.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

These guys play basketball the real way.

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From Feb 1...

Coach is saying the right things



LSU needs to find the vanishing Ben Simmons quick
GLENN GUILBEAU, Gannett Louisiana 5:30 p.m. CST February 1, 2016
Ben Simmons, Buddy Hield, Dante Buford
(Photo: Bill Feig/AP)
BATON ROUGE — The No. 1 amateur basketball player in the world, according to the projected NBA Draft in June, faced the No. 1 college basketball team in the country, according to the Ratings Percentage Index and the Associated Press poll, on Saturday afternoon in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on ESPN.

This was to be LSU 6-foot-10 freshman guard/forward Ben Simmons’ first major moment and LSU’s first big payoff for signing him over Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, Connecticut, Kansas or Louisville, where he would have played in such marquee games much more routinely.

And the graceful No. 25 had 14 points, seven rebounds, five assists and just three turnovers after he tipped in a teammate’s miss with 10:01 to play in the game to give the Tigers a 61-51 lead. LSU had been up by double digits for the most part since a layup by Simmons for a 48-38 lead with 17:20 to go. He added his near-nightly ESPN highlight 30 seconds later with a spectacular dunk for a 50-38 lead. The lead grew to 14.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma senior guard Buddy Hield, who, like Simmons, is a first team AP preseason All-American and a projected early NBA first-rounder, had 17 points at the 10:01 mark with six rebounds, two turnovers and no assists. Not a bad tradeoff of titans.

Until it turned. Over the final 9:50, Simmons took only one shot that he missed with 4:46 to go that would’ve kept LSU up by seven. Instead, Hield hit a 3-pointer eight seconds later to get the Sooners within 65-63. It was his third 3-pointer in five attempts since that Simmons’ tip-in. Hield hit another 3-pointer with 4:05 to go for a 66-65 lead — Oklahoma’s first since the opening minutes. To help facilitate this Sooner run, Simmons also turned the ball over with 6:12 to play and with 5:46 to go. Simmons’ only positive statistics over the final 9:50 were two rebounds.

That “25 Is Coming” ticket promotion LSU had been full court pressing since May had morphed into “25 Has Left the Building.” Simmons finished with 14 points, nine rebounds, five assists and five turnovers. Hield finished with 32 points, eight 3-pointers and seven rebounds.

“I think they did a pretty good job,” Simmons said of Oklahoma shutting him out down the stretch. “We were trying to get through our sets and make sure we were keeping the ball moving. I think they did a solid job.”

Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger said his forwards, 6-9 Khadeem Lattin and 6-8 Ryan Spangler, played more aggressively toward the more finesse-oriented Simmons.

LSU coach Johnny Jones blamed his guards for not getting it to Simmons as they had been earlier in the second half, and he will be demanding that when the Tigers (13-8, 6-2 Southeastern Conference) return to more typical dimly lit action at Auburn (9-11, 3-5 SEC) at 6 p.m. Tuesday on the SEC Network.

“Ben did a great job of getting where he needed to,” Jones said. “We’ve got to do a better job of getting it to him. We can’t get it in there late to him, where they can get deflections. Oklahoma did a good job of making sure they got in the gaps defensively, not allowing us to try to drive the ball. We wanted to run some high-low action to Ben inside there. They did a good job preventing us from getting to the post.”

Either way, Simmons rarely touched the ball in the final minutes, even though he plays guard and often handled the ball. Junior guard Tim Quarterman, who led the Tigers with 18 points and had four assists, did most of the ball handling in the final minutes, taking three shots with a made 3-pointer and an assist over the last 2:51.

“I think it’s going with what works,” Simmons said. “Me going inside was working. We went away from it.”

LSU, including Simmons, may have also grown lax after taking the 10-point lead with 10:01 to go.

“I learned that we have to keep going,” Simmons said. “We have to play the full game and not take our foot off the gas.”

With a huge RPI win against No. 1 Oklahoma lost, LSU will now have to accelerate significantly to reach the NCAA Tournament as only 10 games remain. The Tigers, who dropped from 75th in the RPI to 82 after the Oklahoma game, may have to finish 7-3 or 8-2 and win in the SEC Tournament to reach the Big Dance. They will have to stay away from losses to low RPI teams such as Auburn, which is at 109.

Auburn coach Bruce Pearl took up passionately for his next opponent during the SEC teleconference Monday.

“I think that LSU is getting way too much negative publicity on their season,” he said in his opening comments. “They’re a young team. They start two sophomores (forward Craig Victor and guard Jalyn Patterson) and a freshman (Simmons). Victor joined them (in December). Keith Hornsby (a senior returning starter) joined them in December. And the three losses that they have in January? At Florida (receiving votes in AP poll). At Texas A&M (ranked No. 8 by AP). And a last second buzzer beater against the best team in the country. They say the way they evaluate the tournament is, ‘What are you like with your players?’ And flat out, LSU did not have two of their top five or six players until the middle of December. And you look at what they’ve done in January. I think it’s time for people to get off their back and actually give them some credit for blending a very talented team that’s a very young team.”

Pearl’s team, meanwhile, has lost three straight, including 74-63 to Oklahoma State on Saturday. But senior forward Cinmeon Bowers, who is averaging 10.7 points and 9.1 rebounds a game, is expected to return for the LSU game after being suspended for Saturday’s game.

“I personally would love to see LSU go on a run, and I would personally love for them to do so well that some of the people that are criticizing them just have to eat their words,” Pearl went on. “To talk about, ‘Yeah, you’ve got to get Ben Simmons the ball at this time or that time,’ and so on and so forth, but I love a guy that is willing to make the extra pass and make his teammates better. He’s not selfish. And you know what? He takes good shots, and he gets guys better shots. So I think rather than criticism, I think more credit should be going to LSU. Now, they’ve got to go now and start to win.”

Pearl meant beginning Saturday when LSU hosts Mississippi State (9-11, 2-6). Not Tuesday night.

“We’ve got our hands full,” he said. “Their size is tremendous and so many offensive options. You can’t double team them down in the low post because of the way they shoot the basketball. Really good basketball team.”

yea, and then the team went out and followed that up with some awful losses where they continued to ignore Simmons for long stretches.

The guy is so good and so unselfish he should touch the ball on every single possession. Either in the low post where he's basically unstopable or in the high post where he can run an entire offense by himself or just give him the ball as a point guard if you can't figure out how to make a simple pass into the post.

I really enjoyed hearing the announcers at the last few games echo exactly what I'm saying and just ripping into the team for under utilizing such an amazing weapon.


Coach is an idiot. Any college coach who can't get his players to do what he wants should be fired immediately. This isn't the NBA, its college. Coach is in charge, or at least he should be.

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lost 38-71 to the Aggies today. simmons was 4-11 and had 10 points and 12 rebounds. the fuck.

Missed March Madness, said they won't play in the NIT.

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I'd like to see NCAA introduce a rule that if you refuse an invite to a tourney, you are ineligible to play in any post season tourney next year.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

watched that game, it was like watching a trainwreck or 9/11, just couldn't turn away from the carnage.

The team just stood around the entire game, probably the worst effort I've ever seen in my life. And of course the horrible coach did nothing about it. At some point I would imagine any other coach in the country would've pulled the entire team off the floor and put 5 walk-ons in their place just to send a message. How as a coach do you endorse a complete lack of effort like that???


Glad they turned down the NIT, the world thanks them.

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I don't agree with that. I'm sure the NIT and the fans would rather have teams there that wanted to be there as opposed to a team like LSU who is obviously going to mail it in if they are forced to go.

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maybe he's angling for an NBA gig.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest