Simmons began the season as the presumptive first selection in the N.B.A. “The disappointment with him comes in specific moments, not in total production,” the ESPN analyst Sean Farnham said.
As the clock ticked down in closely watched games against North Carolina State in December and against Oklahoma in late January, Simmons did not demand the ball and take the decisive shots. Simmons, too, has not always risen to the occasion, especially late in games. Immaturity is the hardest thing to overcome.” “They’re playing a team of freshmen and sophomores,” Kennedy said, “and sometimes that’s not a question of talent. The rest of the Tigers, including another highly touted freshman, Antonio Blakeney, and the junior guard Tim Quarterman (they combined for 40 points against Tennessee), have been inconsistent. L.S.U.’s lone senior of consequence, Keith Hornsby, has battled injuries all season. A generation later, the Tigers fielded teams featuring the all-Americans Chris Jackson (the future Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf) and Shaquille O’Neal between 19, but managed only two tournament wins. tournament (though the field was far smaller in Pistol Pete’s day). Simmons played his home games in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, named for the floppy-haired scoring sensation who averaged 44.2 points per game in his career. tradition when great players don the purple and gold. Underachievement is something of an L.S.U. Johnson himself took to Twitter to announce “LSU’s Ben Simmons is the best all-around player I’ve seen since LeBron James came out of high school to the NBA!” Raised in Melbourne, Australia, and playing high school ball in Florida, Simmons has a diverse game that has been compared to those of Magic Johnson and LeBron James. Simmons has had a statistically terrific season, averaging nearly 20 points, 12 rebounds and 5 assists per game, confirming the preseason buzz that hovered around him. faces top-seeded and 17th-ranked Texas A&M (25-7) in a semifinal on Saturday.) Unless the Tigers (19-13) receive the automatic berth that comes with winning the conference tournament, Coach Johnny Jones’s team will miss out on the tournament. tournament berth remain alive, if barely. The victory did nothing to solve college basketball’s biggest mystery: why a team that features such a special talent is otherwise so pedestrian. won, 84-75, over an undersize Tennessee team (15-19) playing its third game in three days.
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