BATON ROUGE — The clock began ticking toward the first exhibition game on Nov. 5 Saturday morning shortly before 9 a.m. when the 2001-2002 LSU men’s basketball team took to the main floor of the Maravich Assembly Center for its opening practice.
Fifth-year coach John Brady took his team through a three-hour and 10 minute session and felt pretty good about the opening effort.
“For the first day it was pretty good,” said Brady. “Like most first days of practice, every one was early and every one was eager to begin. It’s really not the first practice, but the 21st practice when we see if they are still early and eager. But overall, I thought we held up pretty well. We got some things accomplished and our attention and work ethic were good.”
Two players missed the opening workout: senior Jermaine Williams with a thigh bruise and walkon Brian Green, who has been off for some three weeks with a stress fracture suffered in his lower leg during pre-season workouts.
One potential problem came midway through the practice when reserve sophomore guard Charlie Thompson jammed his right thumb during a drill. LSU trainers took Thompson for X-ray on the thumb in late afternoon and according to basketball trainer Drew Shea, the results were negative and they will treat it on a day-to-day basis as a sprain.
Jason Wilson and JueMichael Young both left the practice late briefly with cramps, but both returned and are cleared for the team’s next practice on Sunday.
The Tigers emphasized defense during a good bit of the practice, something Brady is hopeful of improving with this year’s squad.
“We’ve got to pay attention to defending more than we did a year ago,” said Brady. “We just need to do a better job of that to begin to get where we need to be.”
LSU plays its first exhibition game at the Assembly Center on Nov. 5 and opens its season on Saturday, Nov. 17, at the Assembly Center against Campbell.