BATON ROUGE — LSU senior Marcus Thornton was named Southeastern Conference Player of the Week Monday by the league office for his play last week against Mississippi State and Xavier.
Thornton averaged 30.5 points per game on 55.5 percent (20-of-36) shooting from the field and 53.3 percent (8-of-15) shooting from three-point range.
Thornton led the Tigers with 31 points against Mississippi State on Jan. 21 and followed that with a 30-point outing against nationally-ranked Xavier.
He became the first LSU player to have back-to-back 30-point games since Ronnie Henderson went three consecutive games in 1995. He has reached the 30-point mark four times this season and seven times in his two years at LSU.
One of the highlights for Thornton, from Baton Rouge, was a 3:40 stretch of the second half against Mississippi State when he scored 17 points to help LSU take control of the game. Included in that stretch was three treys and a layup on four consecutive possessions for the Tigers.
LSU travels to Knoxville to take on Tennessee Wednesday night at 7 p.m. CST at Thompson-Boling Arena in a game televised on the Raycom network and broadcast on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network and in the GeauxZone at LSUsports.net.
SEC Coaches Teleconference
January 26, 2009
LSU HEAD COACH TRENT JOHNSON
Opening Statement …
“We’re a little banged up right now. Quentin Thornton is having a problem with his Achilles, so it’s going to be day-to-day in terms of if he will make the trip. Garrett Temple is having a little trouble with his ankle so we held him out today. Other than that it’s just the normal nicks and bruises that occur this time of the year. Obviously, there are some guys on the team that are freshmen that haven’t played multiple minutes, so I fully expect them to have an opportunity to step in and play and get back to playing quality basketball.”
On Tennessee …
“They are very, very battle tested. They’ve probably played the toughest schedule out of any team in the country. Offensively, they are very, very skilled; they are capable of going off on large scoring spurts if you’re not defending at a high rate. It’s hard to find something wrong with Tyler Smith. Probably the biggest compliment I can give a player like him is he probably impacts more than any other player in our league, let alone maybe in the country, but he’s not the only guy on that team, you can go on and on about Wayne Chism and J.P. Prince, who was at Arizona when I was in the Pac 10. They’re very skilled, very talented and we’re going to have to be at our best to have a chance to compete at a high level.”
On what he learned after losing to Xavier …
“What I learned is that we’re not there yet, but we’re not far in terms of competing at a high level like that and be able to win that kind of game. To start the second half, we came out hard and played well and had a stretch there offensively where we had some good shots that just didn’t go down, so it’s one of those situations where you have to put it behind you and understand now we’re back into league play and we have 12 games before the SEC tournament, we have six on the road and six at home and you have to compete at a high level like we did against Xavier.”
On what’s missing, in his opinion, from beating a team like Xavier …
“What’s missing is being able to win a game at that level. Winning a game like that gives you confidence. I was thoroughly impressed with Xavier on tape and having competed against them I’m even more impressed. The next step for us is to get confidence by beating a team like that.”
LSU PLAYER QUOTES
Center Chris Johnson
On Tennessee’s Wayne Chism…
“Watching the scouting reports, Wayne Chism has a nose for scoring, and that’s pretty much what he does. He can shoot from the outside. We just need to make him uncomfortable, try to make him do some things that he doesn’t want to do and keep him off the offensive boards.”
Forward Tasmin Mitchell
On Tennessee’s Tyler Smith…
“In the scouting report, Tyler Smith likes to drive the ball, and I’m just going to play back off of him a little bit, play the drive and keep him off the offensive boards.”
On Tennessee’s big men…
“We want to approach this game like we approach any other game. They are very athletic, but we’ve played a lot of different variations of big men. We are just going to go out and guard them and approach this game like Coach Johnson would like us to approach any other game.”
Guard Garrett Temple
On what he takes from the Xavier loss…
“We felt like they were the better team that night. They made shots; we didn’t make shots. We feel like we got shots that we’ve made in the past, but we just didn’t knock them down. You have to give credit to them. They came in and played a good game. They stayed poised, and you just have to learn from it. We don’t have any moral victories. The best thing is that we see where we are now, and it wasn’t a conference game, so we are still on top of the SEC West. That will send a message when we go to Tennessee this Wednesday.”
On if he sees any changes in Tennessee from last year’s team…
“They are not pressuring as much because they may not be as quick or have as many athletes or speed. Their pressure has lightened up a little bit, but that may be because of the two teams they played last. Defensively, they don’t take as many chances, but they are still a fast-break team. We are going to approach it as we would any other game. Tyler Smith is a different type of post player. He plays inside and out, and we are going to help Chris (Johnson) on the inside against (Wayne) Chism and (Brian) Williams.”