BATON ROUGE — The LSU Tigers media day was held Wednesday on the LSU campus in preparation for the 2005-06 season. The team makes its official debut on Friday night at the “Party at Pete’s Palace” following the 6 p.m. volleyball game between LSU and Mississippi State at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Here are the opening comments of LSU Coach John Brady at the media day session:
“One thing about this particular season is our schedule and how difficult it is. Thirteen teams went to postseason — eight to the NCAA. We go on the road at West Virginia, which I don’t know if we really ever understood how good that team was when we played them a year ago. We go to Ohio State, which is the only team last year to beat Illinois in a regular season game. West Virginia’s got four starters back as does Ohio State. We go to Connecticut on national TV, and UConn if you pick up any magazine they are preseason top five in America. We play Cincinnati in Las Vegas, and because of the situation with Bob Huggins I’m sure their team will have something to prove and how hard they’re going to play.
“Our home schedule with Houston and UL-Lafayette is intriguing. Houston, we can’t seem to beat them over there. UL-Lafayette is supposed to have their best team. They’ve got five starters back. Northern Iowa is probably an intriguing team on our schedule. They’re quite good. They won 24 games a year ago, went to the NCAA. They’ve got all of their players back. They’re preseason top 25 in any magazine you pick up. We have Tulane at home, and our SEC home schedule is anchored by Kentucky. It’s a very challenging schedule for our young team and one that I think we’re excited about playing.
“I’m going to briefly touch on last year and then move on into a little more specifics about my ideas about this team we have coming up. Last year our team entered the season with some moderate expectations, I guess. We were preseason picked No. 3 in the West and wound up progressing as the year went on and got to be really a real good, efficient basketball team down the stretch.
“We were preseason picked third and able to win the West, have a 12-4 SEC record, which is the second best record behind only Kentucky. We were 8-0 at home in the SEC, which doesn’t seem like a big thing. It may be in terms of what has been able to do here in the past when only the ’80-’81 team, which I think is the best team LSU has ever had, has been able to go undefeated at home in the SEC. We were 14-1 at home, which I think is pretty good. We won seven in a row in one stretch and were able to win 20 games.
“That team last year produced the SEC Player of the Year and the SEC Freshman of the Year. I think the progression of both of those young men in our program, we put them in a situation where they could be successful. In addition, Brandon Bass was also the SEC male Scholar-Athlete of the Year in men’s basketball. In spite of all that, when we had moderate expectations at the beginning of the season, I think what our team was able to do was build an expectation level as we progressed through the SEC and as well as we played in the SEC Tournament.
“In the game against Kentucky, a free throw here or there could have won that game. We weren’t able to win it, and with the expectation created as we went along, our poor performance in the first game of the NCAA let down some expectations. You know as well as I know when you don’t meet the expectation level that you have for yourself, it’s not only disappointing to the coaches and the players, it’s extremely disappointing to our fans. Hopefully, with the schedule we have with the things that we’re going to go through early, we anticipate that that will pay off down the stretch and we’ll be able to go to the NCAA Tournament and have it turn out differently.
“This year’s team, I mentioned our youth. We have one senior — Darrel Mitchell. Three juniors in Darnell (Lazare), Tack Minor and Kentrell Gransberry, who’s a junior college transfer. Couple of sophomores in David Fleshman, a walk-on, and Glen Davis, who is the returning SEC Freshman of the Year. We have seven freshmen. Two of those seven are redshirts — Tyrus Thomas and Garrett Temple. Then Alex Farrer is a true freshman and Chris Johnson, Magnum Rolle, Ben Voogd and Tasmin Mitchell.
“I think that because I like the leadership of our team, I think the youth of our team in this situation we’re going to use that as a positive. When they reported here in August, I have to tell you this is the best group in terms of their approach to the work, managing of their time this early, their receptiveness to what we want them to do. All of those tangible things that coaches observe with their teams that they don’t teach seem to be with this group. That’s a nice place to start, and it may be because of our youth.
“The second thing I have listed here to talk to you about is because of our good leadership. Last year we wrestled with the fact of who was leader on our team. It seems this year’s team, the leadership with Darrel Mitchell, Glen Davis and Tasmin Mitchell, who is a special freshman, has really been unique and really stands out with this team. The last couple of LSU teams that we’ve put on the floor — outside of when Collis (Temple III) was here and Ronald Dupree — we really haven’t had this. It’s really striking from a coaching staff standpoint that our leadership seems to be there with good quality people. Even Darnell Lazare has been really good with his early leadership of this team has been very positive with these young players.
“I anticipate this team being a very good rebounding team. If you haven’t seen some of the guys that we have, we’re extremely long — really uncharacteristically long. If you remember back, Stromile Swift was quite long with his wingspan, tipped balls and got his hands on things that normal people can’t. We’ve got some guys that can do that. Glen Davis is not long in terms of his arms, but his width and his girth makes him difficult around the goal. So, I think this team is going to be a very good rebounding team. I refer to just the athleticism of this team and the length of this team. I think you will see that we extend the floor, particularly in our half-court defense, we’ll be able to touch some balls normally we may not have in the past.
“I think our ball defense has always been pretty good. Last year Brandon Bass blocked some shots, but he wasn’t a real shot blocker. I think we have some guys like Magnum Rolle, Chris Johnson, Glen (Davis) and Tasmin (Mitchell), and even Tyrus Thomas is extremely long and gifted in terms of his timing to block shots and get his hands on the ball that normal players have difficulty doing. I think our athleticism and our length is certainly going to help us.
“I refer about our attitude and our approach. I think every coach that coaches every team, if they stand up and tell you that all their players are wonderful people and there’s never a problem, that’s some hocus pocus going on. I think with every young player today, on some team there is a challenge in their approach to make them better in what they do — whatever it may be. This team — as a collection — with their attitude, their approach, being on time, all of the little things that we don’t have to worry about as coaches this team seems to have.
“The next team about this team that I see is the flexibility that I will have as a coach offensively and defensively. Instead of being a very vanilla man-to-man team that plays zone occasionally to change the tempo of the game as we have, I think this team can do multiple things at different times because of the athleticism of the team. That’s going to take some teaching with this young group because they haven’t been exposed to enough of it to really grasp it like we want. I think when you see them you will notice it’s a different looking team than we’ve had.
“Offensively, we will do basically the same things that we’ve done since Stromile (Swift) and Jabari (Smith) anchored our post. I think this team has that type of personnel. We won’t change a lot in that regard. We’re still committed to try to advance the ball quickly as we did last year better. We were the third leading scoring team in the SEC, which that had never happened before. So, we’re committed to scoring baskets and scoring points and trying to do it in quicker ways — a touch here, a deflection here, a press, a double team, a steal, a pitch ahead. Those type of things that can lead to easy offense.
“Defensively, although we tried to press a little bit last year, I think you’ll see more of a wide open defense because of the versatility of our guys. I think you’re going to see something from me that I haven’t done is play eight, nine, 10 guys a game. You might see me in the first six minutes sub three guys at a time. We have a lot of guys that can do a lot of different things. Since seven of them are freshmen, what does it matter? I’m going to get them in the game. I think our players understand that. We talked to them about that. They’re excited about that. What that’s going to do as the year goes along is builds more team relationships, better camaraderie and our players will see an end to what they’re out there trying to do.”
LSU Players Quotes
Senior guard Darrel Mitchell
On his focus and the newcomers …
“This season, I am coming in more focused than my three previous years. This is my last season. I am trying to put the past three seasons behind me and concentrate on this season. We have several new guys this year. That is a big thing for any team. We just have to take practice slowly and day-by-day and progress as the season goes on. Being that we have so many new guys, that is half of the team. They have to come in and play, so they are going to have to come to practice ready to concentrate and focus.”
On this year’s team…
“We are going to have some exciting highlights and a lot of exciting things with these long guys who are real quick. I think this is the quickest team we have had since we have been here, most athletic.”
Junior forward Darnell Lazare
On the non-conference schedule …
“I am looking forward to the challenges, especially at Connecticut. It is going to be a big crowd. They have been having a great team for the past 10 to 12 years. All of our road games, we are going to have to come out and play hard. It is going to test our team, test our character, our focus and how tough we are. It will be a good test before the SEC starts. I am looking forward to it. It will really help us out a lot for postseason play.”
On the freshmen…
“All of the young guys bring something very valuable to the team. They are very athletic. Some of them are good shooters and some are nice rebounders. They are going to have to come in and play a very vital role on the team. Some may have larger roles than others, but everyone is going to have to contribute. I feel like we have a team that is nine, 10 to 11 guys deep. It should be a good year for the freshmen and good year for our team all around.”
On his expanding role and improvement…
“In the off season I focused a lot on my strength, finishing balls around the basket. I tried to work on all aspects of the game to be honest. The biggest thing would be my intensity level as far as going hard for long periods of time. A lot of my summer was spent from the mental aspect. I have been here two years, know how the system is, and I know what it takes to win. Just being mentally prepared and just being ready to contribute with plays on the floor is what I have focused on. I just want to try to help the team win games.”
Sophomore forward Glen Davis
On his off season…
“It was a pretty big summer. Wow, when I think about it, I went to a lot of places, but most of all the USA Olympic thing was a great experience. Going over there with Marty Platt to Argentina is something that I will never forget. Being coached by Phil Martelli, one of these legend coaches, he was a great coach. I went over there and I learned a lot of things, and met different people and experienced some things that I could bring back and show my team and let them see from what I experienced.”
On his number change…
“The number change is something I had been wanting to do. When you ask, number 34 who is that? Baby Shaq. No offense to Shaq, but I want my own identity, my own number with my own thing. No one has zero so hopefully I can just let this one ride. Also it is a symbol of where I started from just to keep me level headed. Zero, I started with nothing. It always makes me think about back when I was little and what I had to do to get to this moment.”
On what he thinks about the team this year…
“Hopefully we can do some great things. Everybody can learn from each other and push each other to their max. Hopefully our sensational freshmen can come and do some big things for us, because we are going to need them.”
On having a young team…
“I don’t think it matters as long as each person comes out to play every day. Each player can play, we have major talent, we just need to know how to use it and which was we are supposed to do it. Hopefully that is not a factor and we can look past that, and everyone can grow up pretty soon.”
On his recommendation to the freshmen…
“Just take one day at a time, because you are going to have some bumps and you are going to have some obstacles. As long as you learn from your mistakes and just keep humble head and keep your head on track you are going to be fine. It is going to be tough and you are going to have some ups and downs in the SEC and you are going to feel like you don’t want to play and you’ll feel like things aren’t going your way. You just have to keep a level head through all of the trouble, and I believe if they stick with that and we all stick with that way we will do fine.”
Freshman forward Tasmin Mitchell
On the transition from high school to college…
“I think the transition is the running and how they work out. I worked out with Gayle Hatch since I was in seventh grade, but the conditioning on how they run the stadium has really helped me. It really let me know that I have to be in better condition to play in the SEC, and to do what it takes. The conditioning was very hard the first few months.”
On his role on the team…
“My role on the team is going to do the intangibles. Pass to the post, play good defense, score, rebound a lot and put in those missing pieces that they didn’t have last year.”
On his thoughts on the team being young…
“This team basically just needs to mature. Like you said we have seven that are freshman and some other guys who are young and we have one senior. We are going to have to gell together as a team and the senior lead us. Let him lead us and let us know what we have to overcome. We are not experienced yet, and it is going to be very hard to overcome. The main thing we have to do is mature as a team and play as one.”
On finally being at LSU…
“This is very strange being here, because I have been watching it from the stands for a long time. Since I was in eighth grade I have been watching it from the stands I was always thinking man I wish I was down there. Now it is my time, and I can’t believe it because it came so quick. Just yesterday I was a freshman in high school. So basically I always wanted to come to LSU, because I knew a lot of my peers were there like Glen Davis, Garrett Temple, Tyrus Thomas and Darnell Lazare. They really influenced me to come here.”