BATON ROUGE — LSU basketball coach Trent Johnson met with the media Thursday morning after reviewing the video tape of Wednesday night’s 68-56 win over Nicholls State and offered comments on Saturday’s game against Texas A&M set for the Toyota Center in Houston. Here are an excerpt of some of the comments:
Trent Johnson Media Session
December 18, 2008
LSU HEAD COACH TRENT JOHNSON
On Texas A&M…
“Obviously, this is a basketball team (Texas A&M) that is tough. They have a level of toughness, mentally and physically. Pretty much the nucleus of this basketball team is NCAA Championship-level tested. One of their better players is now gone (DeAndre Jordan), much like Anthony Randolph. You have to be impressed with their physicality. I’ve watched all of their game tapes of this year. This is a good game for us at this time of year. I want to go back to last night a little bit. Like I said, I was surprised at Nicholls State’s physicality and how they knocked us off our heels, but with this basketball team, as much as you hate to go back into the past, this was an LSU team last year that when teams got physical, there was some adversity. We sort of disappeared.
“This is a different level in terms of being physical. They like to run their stuff, and they’re big. They pound it into the post, and they try to wear you down. I’m really familiar with that style of play because that’s the way I played in the past at Stanford. We can’t be in a situation where we go around, don’t run our offense, don’t execute and take a quick shot because they are going to come down and pound it into the post. They’ve got a good perimeter point guard in (Donald) Sloan. Josh Carter is a pro. He shoots it. He really stretches you, and whoever they put in the post is impressive. He will be big and strong where you won’t be able to get angles. They are a very complete team, and of course (coach) Mark Turgeon does a great job.
“I’m a little surprised, quite frankly, that this basketball team isn’t ranked. I don’t know who is voting, but they’re 9-1, and they beat an Arizona team that I’m very familiar with that has four special players. Then, they went on the road and beat Alabama, who is for the most part picked to win the SEC West. Alabama is probably as talented as anybody in our league just from what I’ve seen off tape. It should be fun. It really should be fun just from the standpoint of what I told these guys after the game. Regardless of what happens, we still need to get back on the bus, come back and get ready to play another game or two. It’s not going to make our season. It’s not going to break our season. It’s another game, and we need to approach it like we approach all of our other games and understand that if we execute and compete at a high level, which they are going to have to from start to finish because this is a team that’s not going to go away and if we get behind, we’re going to have to really dig to give ourselves a chance. From that standpoint, it should be fun.”
On if he has any concern with the players putting too much emphasis on this game…
“That’s a concern, and it’s also my responsibility and my job, so to speak, to get them to understand that. I know Garrett Temple and Tasmin Mitchell have a pretty good feel, but I don’t know when you look at others on this team. I thought Marcus Thornton‘s comments immediately after the game were sincere and thoughtful that he said he’s been looking forward to this game because last year, that was his first experience in big-time college basketball. Bo Spencer started against Texas A&M last year and played very minimal minutes, but Storm (Warren) hasn’t been in this battle. Chris Johnson hasn’t been in a battle like this in a game with extensive minutes with a huge role. Chris Bass, Delwan Graham and all the freshmen, Alex Farrer, again, what I’m saying is being in a game like this with a role and knowing that if you do such and such, you have a chance to win a game coming off an eight-game win streak. It’s real easy to be in a game like this and be able to run up and down and not have a chance to win it. They were in a lot games against good teams last year but had no chance to win. They had no chance because they weren’t very competitive, or we weren’t very competitive. It’s a different element.
“For me, it’s always going to be the same. I guess they thought after (the Nicholls State game) that I would be jumping up and down for the A&M game. We have another basketball game and that so much is so important that this team continues to understand that. They have to continue to understand that. Again, I’m really looking forward to seeing how we respond when we’re going up against a good team with talented players who are mentally and physically tough. They’ll knock us back. That’s what is going to happen, and how are we going to respond to that?”
On Garrett Temple not being on the floor for the second part of the first half (two fouls) and it affecting the team…
“There’s no secret to that. There’s a lot to that, but also, those other guys need to understand that there’s going to be times like that where they are going to have to play without him (Temple). We’ve talked about these scenarios, and we simulate these scenarios in practice. Garrett might get two fouls, or maybe Chris Johnson‘s got three and now, we can’t play with Chris, so we have to go small because that’s going to happen unless he really gets disciplined. I go back to earlier in the year when we didn’t have Marcus early on, but they’ve got to play through that. Guys coming off the bench have to understand. Terry Martin has to understand that when he’s in the game right now, his primary responsibility or role defensively is to do exactly what Garrett is doing, not take two bad shots, throw the ball away and think he’s still going to be out there. There is a lot of that involved, no question. Garrett is one of our best players, and he stabilizes things.”