Everywhere LSU freshman forward Ben Simmons goes, sold-out areas follow.
Nothing but the accents changed when the Melbourne, Australia, native headed home with the Tigers for their preseason Australian tour.
“Everywhere I went, people recognized me,” Simmons said. “When they called me out, the fans went crazy. It was a surreal experience, but it was fun.”
Despite the fanfare, Simmons said his favorite part of the trip was seeing family and returning to familiar surroundings.
Simmons’ comfort was evident on the court as he led the Tigers with 20 points and nine rebounds per game while tallying a team-high 35.4 minutes per game.
Although Simmons posted a team-high 25 turnovers through the Tigers’ five games, he led in assists, and LSU coach Johnny Jones said he had to make an adjustment to the speed of play while also being the primary ball handler.
“That’s something that Ben will continue to be able to make an adjustment to as he transitions from high school to college,” Jones said. “But he has all the ability in the world to make those type of adjustments. He’s a guy who’s a perfectionist. He’s a guy who doesn’t like to have bad stat lines.”
LEARNING TO GO SMALL
Last season, the Tigers depended on the physicality of former forwards Jarell Martin and Jordan Mickey in the paint.
Without those two big men this season, Jones said he realizes the Tigers will need a formidable inside presence to step up this season.
“The makeup of the team is going to be a bit different, and there’s a big void to be filled because of those guys not being here,” Jones said. “That’s really the unknown for us now. There’s going to need to be some growth with [junior center] Darcy Malone and [sophomore center] Elbert Robinson [III], like [sophomore forward] Aaron Epps did.”
As the Tigers search for production inside to replace Martin and Mickey, LSU experimented with a smaller lineup featuring Simmons as the lone forward, which allowed the Tigers to play at a faster pace.
Simmons was the only big man to record more than 100 minutes during the Tigers’ five games in Australia.
Although the Tigers produced an average of 87.2 points per game, their size disadvantage led to rebounding struggles and mismatches on defense, which LSU looks to improve on heading into 2015.
“It made the offense function well,” said junior guard Tim Quarterman. “We passed the ball around a lot. The only thing about it is when we go small, we just got to help rebound as guards. We got out-rebounded in a lot of games, so just going down there doing dirty work will be big for us coming into this year.”
Josh Gray to miss only one game
After missing the Australia trip because of his participation in an non-NCAA sanctioned game earlier in the summer, senior guard Josh Gray heads into the season with a one-game NCAA suspension hanging over his head.
Jones made it clear the program will hand out an additional punishment beyond the NCAA’s sanction.
“His other punishment will be regulated through us in the program and the team,” Jones said. “He will have to work his way back into good graces with his team and everything else. We think he is prepared and ready to do that.”
Gray averaged 7.1 points and 3.8 assists in 24.8 minutes per game last season.