LSU moves up in polls; Mays picks up honor

Published 12:15 am Tuesday, March 12, 2019

BATON ROUGE — The LSU basketball team won the Southeastern Conference regular season championship outright on Saturday, and clinched the top seed in this week’s SEC Tournament in Nashville.

On Monday, the Tigers  climbed into the next-to-last polls of the season.

LSU (26-5, 16-2 SEC) moved one spot to No. 9 in both The Associated Press Top 25 and USA Today Coaches Poll — both which were released on Monday.

Even though LSU won the SEC crown by beating both Kentucky and Tennessee, the Tigers are ranked behind both teams in the polls.

Kentucky (26-5) is ranked No. 4 and Tennessee (27-4) sits at No. 8 in both polls.

LSU will face the winner of the Florida vs. Arkansas second-round game. The Gators and Razorbacks will face off on Thursday at noon.

Mays earns honor 

LSU junior guard Skylar Mays was announced on Monday as a First-Team Academic All-America on the 2019 Google Cloud Academic All-America Division I Men’s Basketball Team.

The team is selected annually by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) and all sports information/communications members are eligible to vote on the final ballot made up of all-district selections around the country.

The Baton Rouge native while maintaining a 4.01 GPA average in pre-med/kinesiology.

Mays was also selected to the SEC Men’s Basketball Community Service Team on Monday.

Mays has been involved in the Halloween Boo-Zar that LSU conducts every year and which each team hosts its own area for kids in Baton Rouge. Mays also took part in Coach Will Wade’s annual Christmas shopping with the local Boys and Girls club, President F. King Alexander’s Move-In Day Activities in which players and staff help freshman and their parents move into the dorms and welcome them to LSU.