{"id":684885,"date":"2026-05-21T09:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/684885\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:37:11","slug":"throwback-thursday-simmons-battles-melbourne-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/684885\/","title":{"rendered":"Throwback Thursday: Simmons battles Melbourne United"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back in 2015, before he was an NBA All-Star, Ben Simmons led his LSU (Louisiana State University) side in a pre-season fixture against Melbourne United.<\/p>\n<p>Played in front of 8,646 supporters at Hisense Arena [now called John Cain Arena] on Saturday, August 22, 2015, Simmons finished the fixture with an impressive 16 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 3 blocks.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this performance from the future number one overall NBA Draft pick, the Tigers lost 82\u201364 to United.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">THROWBACK THURSDAY \u23ee\ufe0f<\/p>\n<p>Back in his LSU days, Ben Simmons packed out Hisense Arena (now John Cain Arena) for a pre-season clash with <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MelbUnited?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@MelbUnited<\/a>, finishing with 16 points and 11 rebounds despite LSU\u2019s 82\u201364 loss \ud83d\udcaa<\/p>\n<p>Could Simmons return to play on Australian shores one day? \ud83e\udd14 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/eU0Esp48JA\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/eU0Esp48JA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBL (@NBL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBL\/status\/2057340260850503842?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">May 21, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>This fixture ended a five-game tour for Simmons\u2019 LSU, which also stopped in Newcastle (defeated Newcastle All-Stars 89\u201375), Sydney (lost to Sydney Kings 97\u201395) and Brisbane (defeated Queensland All-Stars 91\u201388) before ending in Melbourne.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the Hisense Arena matchup, LSU edged United 97\u201389 at Dandenong Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Following the final clash, Simmons explained the tour had taken its toll on him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDefinitely for me, mentally I don\u2019t think I was prepared,\u201d Simmons said at the post-game press conference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPhysically, I was tired. My legs were kind of shot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were supposed to be ready. Mentally, I was supposed to be ready, but I wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe learned a lot during the five games, and I\u2019m just happy we were able to come down here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Following this tour, Simmons played one season at LSU, averaging 19.2 points, 11.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 2 steals and 0.8 blocks across his 33 appearances.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779356231_487_69d47a153353ed2bdf7cd807_Article Banner_1920x250 (1).jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in 2015, before he was an NBA All-Star, Ben Simmons led his LSU (Louisiana State University) side&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-684885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}