Here's a look at what happened in the Lone Star State and with LSU:
Saturday NCAA Football Recap: LSU is crowned king of the SEC, advances to college football playoffs
Dec 8, 2019, 1:29 pm
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
LSU 37, Georgia 10
Joe "Superman" Burrow padded his Heisman resume even further with an extremely impressive performance leading No. 1 LSU to a spot in the College Football Playoff after routing No. 4 Georgia 37-10 in the Southeastern Conference championship game on Saturday. Burrow threw for 349 yards, four touchdowns and added another 41 yards rushing on 11 carries. The Superman highlight of the game came late in the third quarter when Burrow scrambled to get away from Travon Walker, leaving the lineman on the turf, then drilled a 71-yard pass to Justin Jefferson while sprinting away from another Georgia defender. "It was all improvised," Burrow said. "Justin ran a 6-yard hitch route and saw me scrambling and took off deep. We got a great feel for each other. I knew exactly where he was going to be when I got out of there." Georgia entered the game ranked second in points allowed and until Saturday held nearly every opponent under 20. "That is a really good football team," Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. "We were going to have to make explosive plays. We were unable to do that." LSU is going for its first national title since the 2007 season and will head to Atlanta or Phoenix for a semifinal game on Dec. 28 against OU.
Oklahoma 30, Baylor 23
The sixth-ranked Sooners are Big 12 Champions for the fifth consecutive year after another close win over No. 8 Baylor. "I hope they see the Big 12 champions. They've got a job to do, I get that," Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley said after the Sooners' 30-23 overtime win on Saturday. It was the second time in four games that the Sooners have bested the Bears and third-year Baylor coach Matt Rhule says Oklahoma should be in the playoffs no matter other game results. Only three times since the founding of Baylor's football program in 1899 have the Bears won 11 games in a single season. This historic year for the Bears comes two years after Rhule's first season as head coach in which Bad Baylor lost 11 games in the wake of a sexual assault scandal that led to the firing of two-time Big 12 champion coach Art Briles. Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts was 17-of-24 passing for 278 yards and a touchdown and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb had 173 yards on eight receptions. The Bears will face Georgia in the Sugar Bowl which will likely be hosted in New Orleans. OU will face LSU in the playoffs.
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
Nikola Jokic had 32 points, 15 assists and 10 rebounds, Michael Porter Jr. scored a season-high 30 points and the Denver Nuggets rolled past the Houston Rockets 134-124 on Wednesday night in Jamal Murray’s return from a hamstring injury.
Murray scored 16 points after missing Denver’s past 11 games. After starting 6-1 with Murray available, the Nuggets were just 6-5 without their point guard.
His presence led Denver to one of its best offensive outings of the season, with 19 made 3-pointers and 37 assists to just three turnovers.
“One of the security guards said, ‘Hey, great win tonight.’ I said it was a great outcome,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “I wouldn’t call it a great win. It was a great outcome.
”It was the third consecutive win for the NBA champion Nuggets, who had lost four of five before their current streak.
Jokic, who was sidelined with a lower back injury in a win Monday at the Los Angeles Clippers, recorded his seventh triple-double of the season. Entering the night, all other NBA players had combined for just eight triple-doubles.
“This is pretty easy basketball when you’ve got someone that good with the floater, but also that good at passing,” said Porter, who had 10 rebounds and made seven of his 12 3s.
Denver had lost twice to the Rockets in November, including a 19-point loss in Houston five days earlier. The Nuggets improved their NBA-best home record to 9-0 while dropping the Rockets to 0-7 on the road.
While Murray returned, Denver was without forward Aaron Gordon, who missed his third consecutive game with a strained right heel.
Welcomed with a roaring “He’s back!” from the public address announcer and a hearty ovation from the home crowd before tip-off, Murray injured his ankle after he came down awkwardly on a missed contested shot at the rim two minutes into the game and walked gingerly back to the bench after a Nuggets timeout. He immediately returned out of the timeout and finished with 22 minutes played, though he described his ankle injury as “frustrating.”
“The hamstring’s fine,” Murray said. “I’ve worked enough to get it back to strength. Now, it’s just another thing. I’ve got to work on that and hopefully I’ll be ready.”
After that initial scare, his team had little reason to worry the rest of the night.
Led by 12 points from Porter, the Nuggets scored a season-high 41 points in the first quarter and led by as many as 19 in the period. Denver never trailed and led by double digits for all but the opening 4:16 against a Houston team that was playing the second night of a back-to-back after a loss Tuesday night at the Dallas Mavericks.
“We just woke up pretty late,” Rockets guard Jalen Green said. “If we started off a little bit better, it would have been a different story.”
Green paced the Rockets with 26 points, including 18 in a third quarter in which he made all six of his field goals and all four of his 3s. Alperen Sengun added 22 points for Houston, which lost for the fifth time in seven games following a surprise 6-3 start.
The Rockets were without guard Fred VanVleet, the team’s third-leading scorer and $130 million offseason acquisition, who was sidelined with a sprained left thumb.
UP NEXT
Denver: At Phoenix on Friday.
Houston: At Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday