BATON ROUGE, La. (WGNO) — The LSU Tigers upset #15 Texas A&M Saturday night at Pete Maravich Assembly Center, 76-71. The win strengthens LSU’s NCAA Tournament resume. The Tigers remain tied at No.1 in SEC standings with Kentucky.
With just six games remaining in the regular season, Saturday’s balanced performance boosts confidence.
“We just got to play and not focus on things out there on the perimeter. Things we can control is how hard we play and our attitude. If we can do those things enough night, some great things will happen for us,” said Johnny Jones, LSU Basketball coach.
Great things happened in the second half. The Tigers were solid, aggressive and attacked the ball. The crowd went crazy when they got defensive stops. Including when Keith Hornsby dove for a loose ball against two Aggies.
“Now I have this strawberry on my back, but that’s OK,” said Hornsby, “I’ll see that and it’ll remind me of this good win.”
“When that happened,” Craig Victor said, “it was on.”
Victor was a big difference around the basket. He scored 14 of his 16 in the second half. He said he was on a mission the entire game.
“We valued the basketball and every possession. We didn’t do that the last game,” said Victor.
Ben Simmons recorded his 17th double-double of the season. He played all 40 minutes, which he doesn’t mind.
“I hate coming off the floor even if I have four fouls. I don’t want to come off. I feel like every time I’m on the floor that I can help my team win,” said Simmons.
With the win, LSU improved to 6-0 in home SEC games.