BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team went through a spirited two-hour drill Tuesday night in preparation for the team’s upcoming exhibition tour of Italy. The team, which leaves from New Orleans for Milan on Sunday afternoon, will continue to practice the rest of the week at the Assembly Center.
LSU Coach John Brady liked what he saw in the first team session, which followed some brief individual drills earlier in the day.
“Anytime you have an opportunity to teach your team and help them get better, the juices start flowing and you get excited about it,” Brady said of a session that proved to be crisp and surprisingly lively. “This is pretty good for the amount of time off. We are trying to introduce some new offensive ideas for what we think will benefit this team with the size of the team and the talent we have.
“I think the trip is going to be beneficial for us,” said Brady. “We’d like to win the game, but we want our team to establish a new identity. We relied on Jabari (Smith) and Stromile (Swift) and 38 percent of our scoring and we’ve got to re-identify who we are and I think it will be a chance for our team to develop some camaraderie, a belief in one another and a chance for us to recognize some or our strengths.”
LSU will play at least five games on the trip which will include, besides Milan, stops in Bormio, Verona, Vicenza and Venice. The tentative list of opponents, still being finalized includes games against the Italian and Angolan Olympic Teams, as well as a unit from Belgium.
“It will be some good competition and our guys will get a chance to experience some things they haven’t seen before,” Brady said. “They will experience some players they haven’t played against before and a different style of ball, because the international game is a little quicker. The three-point line is further back. It will be a different experience for them. It will be much like the Japan trip last year with the SEC All-Star team. We are looking forward to it and are excited about it.”
The main benefit of a trip like this, though, is the advantage of getting a team out on the floor to practice with coaches and practice plans, much like it will be in October when fall practice begins.
“With the loss of Jabari and Stromile and with us changing our offense as we are doing it to be more perimeter oriented instead of post dominated, it gives us a chance to get ahead of practice in October,” said the fourth-year Tiger coach. “It will be beneficial for us for sure in that way.”
NOTES:
- Former Tiger and now NBA Champion Shaquille O’Neal attended practice along with 2000 draftee Stromile Swift. Swift recently finished summer league play with the Vancouver Grizzlies after being drafted second overall.
- On O’Neal’s itinerary while in Baton Rouge, he will be helping his step-brother and future Tiger Jamal Harrison get acquainted to the city and the University.
- LSU signee JueMichael Young (G 6-3/200/Fr.), who led the Hammond High School Tornadoes to the class 5A semi-finals, attended practice.
- Other future Tigers who attended practice were guard Charlie Thompson (6-1/180/Fr., St. Louis Catholic-Lake Charles) and forward Jason Wilson (6-7,/250,/Jr., Trinity Valley Community College)
- Incoming freshmen are not allowed to participate in these preseason practices.
- After returning from Italy, LSU begins regular fall practice on Oct. 15.