BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball team held a 90 minute workout Monday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center as they put behind the wins in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament and begin preparation for the Tigers’ Sweet 16 game Thursday in the Atlanta Region at the Georgia Dome against No. 1-ranked Duke.
The game is set for 7:10 p.m. EST/6:10 p.m. CST as the fourth-seeded Tigers take on the tournament’s No. 1 overall seeded Blue Devils in a game regionally televised by CBS Sports.
Following the practice, LSU Coach John Brady and several players met with the area media in the L-Club Room of the Maravich Assembly Center. Here are some of the quotes from the press session:
NCAA Tournament Leaders
Scoring
Adam Morrison, Gonzaga
49
J.J. Redick, Duke
49
Brandon Roy, Washington
49
Craig Smith, Boston College
47
Shelden Williams, Duke
46
Bobby Perry, Kentucky
45
Allan Ray, Villanova
44
Ronald Steele, Alabama
44
Glen Davis, LSU
43
Jared Dudley, Boston College
43
Rebounds
Shelden Williams, Duke
32
Craig Smith, Boston College
29
Omar Williams,
George Washington
24
Roy Hibbert, Georgetown
23
P.J. Tucker, Texas
23
Glen Davis, LSU
21
J.J. Sullinger, Ohio State
21
Will Thomas, George Mason
20
Al Horford, Florida
19
Reyshawn Terry,
North Carolina
19
Assists
Dee Brown, Illinois
16
Marcus Williams, Connecticut
16
Tyler Azzarelli, Monmouth, N.J.
14
Carl Krauser, Pittsburgh
14
Greg Paulus, Duke
14
Luke Rogers,
Northwestern St.
14
Mustafa Shakur, Arizona
14
Earl Calloway, Indiana
13
Joakim Noah, Florida
13
Louis Hinnant, Boston College
12
Ronald Steele, Alabama
12
LSU MEN’S BASKETBALL PRESS CONFERENCE
NCAA REGIONAL ROUND — March 20, 2006 — Baton Rouge, La.
MACRH 20, 2006
LSU HEAD COACH JOHN BRADY
On how LSU matches up with Duke…
“It will be very interesting to see who they assign to Glen Davis because Duke’s basically a man-to-man defensive team. They play some zone but rarely. They play it on a necessity basis it seems to me from watching tape. I’m very interested to see who they put on Darrel Mitchell. I think that will have a lot to do with maybe some things we run offensively depending on who guards who. I like the way we match up. They’re a seven-man team. Their eighth man that plays, plays about 6.2 minutes per game, so they’re basically a seven-guy rotation. Obviously with that in mind, if we can get to the foul line like we’ve been doing it may give us an advantage. I like the matchups that we’ve seen. Before practice today we had a personnel tape of Duke, and we broke each player down in what their strengths and weaknesses were we thought and assigned them to each of our guys. The next couple of days we’ll get more into that specifically. We just kind of introduced our team today to Duke and their personnel and how we think we match up, and we like our matchups.”
On Duke’s combination of J.J. Redick and Shelden Williams…
“I would guess as a possibly, (J.J.) Redick’s awful good and (Shelden) Williams is good, but those two guys we played at Connecticut are pretty good too. I would guess that they’re equal to those. They’re as good a team as we’ve played based on their record. The numbers that Redick puts up offensively — 27 points a game — that’s pretty significant. When you try to guard him in different ways, he’s good enough to take advantage of you if you expose yourself too much defensively. It’s going to be an important matchup for us, but we’ll try to do a couple of different things to get him out of rhythm. We’ll kind of see what happens.”
On if the team needs to defend Duke any better than they’ve played so far this year…
“I think so, particularly on Redick. But the other players on Duke and the numbers that they’re putting up collectively — take Florida for example. I think Florida can spread you out more because all of their players score consistently and average in double figures. Duke, they’ve got two guys who do the majority of their scoring. Even when you know late in games when you watch tape of Duke and the game is on the line and they need a basket, Redick’s going to touch the ball every single time. You know where it’s going. They’ll run both post players out just to set double stack screens for him and he just kind of dribbles around until he finds something that he wants to use or manufacture. He’s tough to guard. The Florida team can spread you out with five different scorers. They’re a little more difficult to prepare for. I’m not saying Duke is an easier team to play because Redick is so dominant, but at least you know where it’s going to one of those two players when they need a basket.”
On how he will defend J.J. Redick…
“We’re going to probably put a couple of different guys on him. I’d say Garrett (Temple) may start on him. Then we may play Tasmin (Mitchell) on him and even Darrel (Mitchell) to give him some different types of defenders. Collectively we’ve got to have a good team defensive effort on him — how we handle him coming off of screens without the ball and how we handle him when he comes off ball screens. There’ll be a couple of different ways that we’ll try to guard him, and we’ll see which one works the best as the games progresses and adjust as we go.”
On if the team will be distracted by playing against a program like Duke…
“I don’t think so. Connecticut’s a pretty significant team to play in Hartford. Kentucky’s a pretty significant name to play against. We did well in those situations. A lot of our players have played against the Duke players in AAU and in the summer on traveling teams. They have seen them and played against them without the Duke across their chest. They’ve seen them in different circumstances. Although our team and I for one as a coach and our team collectively has a tremendous amount of respect for Duke, I don’t think our team is in any awe of thinking we can’t win the game. I don’t sense that at all because of whom we’ve played and where we’ve played them. We already played the No. 1 team in the country this year — Connecticut — in Hartford, and this is our second No. 1 team to play against. It’s not even their home floor, although they may have an advantage in fans. The other thing is we’ve played in the Georgia Dome. I’ve coached there and Darrel Mitchell has played there. It’s not as unfamiliar. But I don’t think our team is walking around in any kind of awe or a belief that they can’t win or anything of that nature. I think they have a tremendous amount of respect for the team and the coach, but I do believe that when we step on the floor our team believes if we do certain things we’ll have an opportunity to win.”
On if playing Duke can bring out more excitement in his team…
“Possibly. I would tend to lean that way than the other with our team. I can just tell it in their step today in practice. Glen (Davis) told me a couple of times that he’s ready to play tomorrow. I want to control that feeling a little bit and don’t let it get too out of hand where he’s too excited to play. Certainly, I think our team will be ready to play. They’re excited about playing and they’re excited about the opportunity they’ve created for themselves by what they’ve been able to do to this point.”
On how the freshman have handled their first NCAA Tournament experience…
“I think they’ve been pretty good. We’d like for Tasmin Mitchell to shoot the ball a little bit better, but I don’t think that really had as much to do with the tournament as much as it had to do with Texas A&M’s defense. I think if we would have played that game anywhere it would have been a difficult assignment because of the way they guarded us. I think Garrett Temple‘s done well. Tyrus (Thomas) has, considering he hadn’t played in almost three weeks and how he’s progressively gotten better. Ben (Voogd) struggled a little bit against Iona, but he was a little calmer against A&M. I think they’ve done well. Magnum (Rolle) is just Magnum. I don’t think he realizes anything. He’s just excited about being there to play. I think they’ve done well. I’ve been pleased with them. I go back to the teams that we played early and where we played them. West Virginia there was a difficult assignment. Connecticut at Hartford was difficult. Ohio State was difficult. We’ve kind of had tournament atmosphere games before we stepped into the tournament actually. I like our team where it is. I like their approach. I like their respect for Duke, but I also like their belief that we can beat this team if we do certain things well.”
On the success of this young team …
“It has been a joy to be on this team. Winning is great. We had some tough times but we overcame that. Being on this team this year has been tremendous because we all gel together so well and not just on the basketball court. We gel together off the court, just like last night when we all went bowling as a team. We have tremendous fun together. Not too many teams in America have more fun than us off the court.”
On the game plan against Duke …
“What we have to do to beat Duke is to play our game, play great defense. They have to have a great game plan to beat us. We just have to go out there and play hard-nosed defense like we have all season. Like coach said, whoever can perfect what they have to do at the end of the game is going to perfect the game.”
On the game plan against Duke …
“We are going to take the same approach as we have been taking in other games this year, regardless if it is Duke or anyone else. We want to go in and execute, play tough defense and win the game.”
On Duke’s team …
“They have J.J. (Reddick) and Shelden (Williams). That is going to be the two keys for us, to get those two guys and try to stop them. They are a well-rounded team. They play tough defense. It is going to be a tough challenge for us.”
On the Duke-Southern contest …
“I didn’t have much time to watch that game, but Southern did a pretty good job in cutting the other three guys out. Shelden and J.J. got theirs. We are going to try to get those guys in foul trouble, if we can. I don’t think Shelden has seen a guy in Glen’s size all year, besides (Tyler) Hansbrough from North Carolina.”
On meeting the expectations this season …
“At the beginning of the season we set some goals for ourselves, and we knew we could accomplish those goals. We haven’t accomplished all of them and the SEC Tournament was one of them. I am not surprised by what we are doing at all. We knew what kind of talent we had. We knew what capabilities we had, and we knew what we could accomplish. This is just one step closer to what we have to do.”
On coming back from injury and contributing in the NCAA Tournament …
“It felt good. I still have to get some timing down. I haven’t been as in the groove as I did before my injury. I am just working and still rehabbing my ankle. It feels good to be back to help my team out. I’m in between 90 and 95 (percent) right now.”
On who he is guarding against Duke …
“It is going to be (Josh) McRoberts and (Lee) Melchionni. I might hold Shelden Williams a little bit. It is just another game. We went to Hartford (Conn.) and played Connecticut when they were the No. 2 team to the wire. We went to Ohio State and played them to the wire. We have learned since then and matured more since then. We have won games in the end since then. It is just another game. We are going to approach it as another game. I don’t think anybody is worried about the four letters on the front of their jersey. It is a significant program, a major program in basketball history. We just have to come out and play basketball and try to play for a victory and not worry about anything else.”
F Glen Davis Quotes
On the defensive effort of Duke forward, Shelden Williams…
“Williams is a great player. My assignment is to play the biggest and best post man on each team, and he’s the best post player on their team, so I just have to do what I’m supposed to do to get the ball game won. I’m just going to take it as a regular game.”
On the Duke-LSU match-up…
“It’s always exciting to play Duke. It’s like playing Connecticut and Kentucky. They’re one of the great teams. I don’t want to take it too excited, I want to take it at a nice pace, so when it really hits me I can receive it the right way. I try to look past the D-U-K-E, those big letters on the front of the jerseys and try to be a competitor and just play.”
On Southern’s effort against Duke…
“We still have the task at hand, we have an opportunity to play Duke and now we’re looking at film, looking at the Southern game and looking at what we need to do to play our game.”
On guarding Duke forward Shelden Williams…
“He’s a smart player. He does a little bit of everything on both ends of the floor he blocks shots he has a nice touch, he’s a physical guy and I think I’m going to have to physical with him also. So I’ll watch out for the things that he does best and try to stop that and make him do things he’s not comfortable doing.”