BATON ROUGE – Coach Trent Johnson conducted his weekly preseason media session to discuss the status of the LSU basketball team heading into Friday night’s 5 p.m. public Purple-Gold scrimmage at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Admission for the event is free.
Here are some of Coach Johnson’s comments:
Opening Statement …
“Obviously we found out a lot about ourselves this weekend. Before I start talking about this weekend, I need to give you the update on the injury report. Justin Hamilton had a concussion, but he has been cleared to practice, which is good. He will be out (there Tuesday), and we will have to monitor him very closely. Dennis Harris is out, he has a bruised heel. He played Saturday for about four minutes, and he didn’t play Sunday at all. Storm Warren may go (Tuesday), we have to check him. I don’t know the exact extent of his injuries; I think it’s his shoulder. Garrett Green‘s x-rays on his back were negative, so he should be able to go (Tuesday).
“Disappointed is the word I want to use. Obviously we did a very good job of beating up on ourselves. I don’t get caught up in the score, what happened Saturday would have been positive when you look at it from a win/loss standpoint, but from a standpoint of what we are trying to get to defensively and from a rebounding standpoint, we are just not very happy. Sunday obviously we competed against a team that is probably going to win their league, is extremely well coached and very physical, tough and talented. We’ve got a ways to get to where we need to get. The only thing that is positive, and I mentioned it to the guys on Sunday, is that it is correctable. Everything there is correctable.
“The questions you may have from the standpoint of the freshman, obviously they are behind defensively. But what is good about it is they are not pleased. As it relates to all four of them, quite frankly, as it relates to as intense as practice has been and they have been thrown in the fire, they have held up physically as good as anybody. That is pretty much it. Going into it, one of the things we wanted to accomplish out of this is find out where we were from an intensity standpoint and a physical standpoint. Quite frankly I was disappointed at times, but it is correctable, and that started immediately on the bus ride home.”
On why he thinks there are so many injuries …
“I don’t know. Let me put it to you like this. If you are not on a practice floor and not in the game, you can’t get better. Part of being durable, as long as I have been in athletics, is there is some mental toughness to that. Some guys can play through pain and some guys can’t. For me, and I told these guys that this year, when our medical people say you can go you are going to go. I can’t answer that, I Just know from my standpoint when it is a consistent injury and it lingers from one year to the next, then I as a head coach am going to re-evaluate your position on this basketball team because it hurts the progress of this team and this program. Back injuries I am sympathetic to, but I have been around guys who played with herniated disks and I have been around guys who played through thigh contusions and heel bruises. I for one got my ribs cracked on a Friday and I played on a Saturday. That is how I look at it. The positive of that is we are deep enough and we have some young guys who want to be on the floor.”
On what he means by physicality being correctable …
“What I mean by this is simple. It is that ‘look-see’ test. You can go out there and look at someone else and think you are bigger and stronger and feel good about yourself. I am not going to get caught up in this guy or that guy, it is a collective issue. We need everyone to be healthy and everyone to understand that no matter whom it is out there, that your reaction is to charge. If someone knocks your teammate down you need to go pick him up, rally around him and stand your ground. It is pretty simple. They understand that and for the majority of this team, which is new, they haven’t experienced that against this caliber of competition. That is the positive of it.”
On what they need to work on most going forward …
“We have to work on all aspects of our game. Obviously we can’t force kids to grow up and get bigger and stronger overnight, but the main thing is our ability to understand pressure. There are some things we have to put in over time in terms of pressure releases. We chart everything. In one game, we had six missed block outs, and the next we had 17. That is correctable, those kind of things. For some of you who are thinking you have three guys injured, those are excuses. Bottom line is if we didn’t scrimmage we would have practiced for three hours on Saturday and then played Sunday. You are going to tell me would you rather play two games or practice Saturday and then play Sunday? Like I said it is a work in progress and we will get to where we need to be, but I don’t expect us to be operating on all cylinders immediately. I expect a lot of what is correctable to be corrected and go from there.”
On how the freshmen dealt with the speed of the college game …
“It is a learning process for them, and I think they handled it as good as you can expect and as good as I can expect from a standpoint that they didn’t shy away from it. Obviously the second half was the barometer where the majority of them were on the floor at the same time. There is a word you use in athletics, or the word I use, is guys are really aggressive when things are going bad, and sometimes they get afraid. None of them shy away from it. Their baptism under fire is a process, but there is a skill set there and there is a want to be really good and they are committed to this program, as long as they keep their head up and keep plugging along it will be good.”
On the scrimmage on Friday …
“As far as the teams, right now it depends on health. If we are completely healthy, one group will probably be Andre Stringer, Ralston Turner, Aaron Dotson, Storm Warren, Malcolm White and Eddie Ludwig. The other team would be Chris Bass, Matt Derenbecker, Jalen Courtney, Dennis Harris, Garrett Green, Darren Populist. Justin Hamilton is a redshirt that has to sit out. We are going to go as long as we can. Right now Dennis, Storm and Garrett are concerns. I don’t want to get out here and go a 40 minute game and those guys not be able to get through it. For me I think they will be in a better rhythm and we will have some more stuff in. The game as far as the setting will be really nice for the kids, and they will probably play better than they did this weekend.”