At this point of the season, the LSU men’s basketball team has to be used to it.
Seemingly every time the Tigers (12-7, 5-2 Southeastern Conference) step foot in an opposing team’s arena, stands are completely filled, and verbal taunts fly from the student sections.
The reason is obvious — college basketball fans want to see LSU freshman forward Ben Simmons play, and they want to give him hell while he’s doing it. It was no different when LSU traveled to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on Saturday, seeking its second road win of the season and its first win in Coleman Coliseum since 2004.
Rival fans know Simmons is bound for a lottery selection in the 2016 NBA draft, so they turn it into a method of jeering.
“It’s been different,” Simmons said in a postgame news conference. “I heard a lot of chants, like ‘76ers.’ It’s just different stuff. You know, ‘overrated.’ You have to be overrated, so I’m cool [with it].”
But in a 72-70 win against the Crimson Tide (10-8, 1-5 SEC), Simmons quieted such chants from the opening tip, scoring six of the first eight LSU points enroute to a 23-point, eight-rebound and five-assist performance.
With his frontcourt counterpart, sophomore forward Craig Victor II, struggling from the field throughout the game and then battling foul trouble in the second half, Simmons stepped on the gas pedal early and often in a much-needed, bounce-back victory.
Often maligned for not taking enough shots outside the paint, the Australian phenom proved he could do that, too — against various defensive looks.
“I think [Alabama] played pretty well [defensively],” Simmons said. “They stepped back a little bit, but once I started hitting that jump shot they had to respect me and come out. That’s all they could really do once I started attacking.”
While Simmons has established himself as a stat-sheet stuffer, notching 14 double-doubles in 19 games, his outing on Saturday was a stark contrast to his night against No. 10 Texas A&M on Jan. 19. In the unfriendly confines of Reed Arena in College Station, Texas, Simmons scored just 10 points on 3-of-9 shooting and recorded four turnovers in a 14-point loss.
In an effort to produce a similar result against Simmons, Alabama coach Avery Johnson tried different methods to frustrate the LSU offense, including a full-court pressure once Simmons left the first half with his second foul. The adjustment worked, as the Crimson Tide outscored LSU, 16-5, in the final five minutes of the period to take a 41-36 lead into halftime.
However, it was LSU coach Johnny Jones’ second-half adjustments that kept the Tigers within reach. When Victor picked up his fourth foul with 12 minutes to go, Jones played four guards for a stretch of the second half, shifting from his typical man-to-man defense to a zone.
Trailing for the majority of the second half, the personnel switch also benefited Simmons and the offense, Jones said.
“On the offensive end of the floor, we were able to space the floor where they had to stay locked in on our shooters,” he said. “I thought it opened up the floor and gave Ben some driving lanes. He was able to get to the rim and finish. And I thought [junior guard] Tim [Quarterman] was able to get to the rim as well because they had to stay locked down on the perimeter guys.”
“So the four-guard lineup opened the floor up for us and gave us some ability to roam a little bit.”
In the end, it was Quarterman, not Simmons, who was the offensive hero in the final two LSU possessions. Quarterman, who scored 11 points off the bench, knocked down two free throws to take a 70-69 lead with a minute and 15 seconds left and then grabbed his own rebound for the game-winning putback with 33 seconds left.
But throughout the day, LSU rode on the coattails of the point-forward who opponents gameplan against and crowds show up to heckle.
Just ask Alabama guard Arthur Edwards.
“It’s kind of hard to defend a [6-foot-10] person that’s bringing the ball up the floor,” he said.