BATON ROUGE — LSU Coach Trent Johnson met with the media Thursday prior to the team’s departure for Tuscaloosa late Friday for Sunday’s SEC opening men’s basketball game at Alabama (12:30 p.m., Raycom Sports, LSU Sports Radio Network).
Here are some of the comments:
HEAD COACH TRENT JOHNSON
Opening Statement…
“It’s a new season. A new season. Everything that has happened in the past can be thrown out the window.”
On what weaknesses in the Utah game could hurt them over the course of the season…
“Well, for the most part it’s pretty much everything we’ve already known and talked about: transition defense, rebounding, although I thought we did a good job of taking care of the ball. But it’s those main things: defensive rebounding, transition defense, point of attack defense, and everything that deals with defense if you don’t come out with a sense of urgency.
“The only thing that was surprising to me was that we broke down in all phases. It wasn’t anything that we didn’t know as a basketball staff, but it was just one of those games, so to speak. Let’s not kid ourselves, Utah is a pretty good basketball team and a better basketball team than we are. As hard as it is for me to admit and accept that, that’s the bottom line. We did a few things in the first half where we broke down, but we were still in striking distance. In the second half we made some adjustments and their balance as a basketball team showed. We went to a zone, covered down in the post.
“The only thing I feel good about is that, non-conference we were 12-2 and the only two teams that beat us were better basketball teams than we are. That’s all in the past and now we’re looking forward to moving forward.”
On rating how his players have played to this point…
“It’s early in the season and I don’t know if I can put a barometer or a ranking on that. We’re 12-2. You can talk about a schedule and other things, but I’ve always felt that there’s so much parody in this game that you need to be ready to play. Now, if anybody in here thought that Boston college would go to North Carolina and beat North Carolina and then turn around and lose to a Harvard team then speak up, but that’s just the bottom line.
“For us, we move forward. In league play, it seems like everything is ratcheted up a little bit more because of the intensity and so on and so forth and Marcus (Thornton) and Bo (Spencer) have played better, but Garret (Temple) has to play better and Chris Johnson has to play better. This is a total team thing. It’s not any one individual player. We have to continue to improve and continue to make certain adjustments along the course of our game and have a short-term memory if things are going to go well for us and we’re going to be successful.”
On if he likes where the team is so far…
“I like 12-2. I like the fact that we’ve got a full squad with the exception of Garrett Greene and I like the fact that we’ve addressed some academic issues and we’re in a pretty good position there. I like the fact that I feel comfortable with where we are offensively, I really do. Like I said, we just need to make sure that mentally and physically, we’re ready to compete at a higher level and we can continue to be tough and compete. It’s like I told them, good teams and good players compete at a high level, they win on the road, they win at home and are always ready to play. That’s where we need to get to.”
On what it takes to get a win at Alabama…
“It’s hard. In my four years, I haven’t won there so I’m trying to get one before I leave. Like Bo (Spencer) said, it’s a tough environment to play in, as most Sec venues are. It’s going to be really loud in there. We’re going to have to talk and stay together. The people who travel on the bus to Alabama are going to be the ones who expect us to win that game. It will be a good confidence builder if we’re able to get a win there. It would start a good conference season for us.”
On being competitive in the Sec after two years of tough conference play…
“We’re not really thinking about the last two years at all. We want to get off to a good start because we want to win the SEC. It has nothing to do with what happened in the past. You win games and that’s how you win the SEC, so were trying to win every game we play. That starts with the Alabama game, no matter where we play or who we play, between the lines it’s our five versus their five. It’s going to be a tough game in a hostile environment and we’re going to have to come out and play hard, play together and take on adversity. It’s going to be like that night in and night out because we play in the SEC.”