BATON ROUGE – Coach Trent Johnson held his weekly Thursday media session to review Wednesday night’s 84-82 win over Mississippi State in Starkville and Saturday’s upcoming game with nationally-ranked Vanderbilt Saturday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The game is the highlight of LSU Basketball Fan Appreciation Day which begins with food and a live band outside on the PMAC Plaza at 11 a.m. All tickets are $5 and LSU students are admitted free of charge with an LSU ID. Tipoff for the game is 12:47 p.m.
Here are some of Coach Johnson’s comments:
Opening Statement …
“Vanderbilt is probably as talented and playing as well as anybody in our conference. Jeffery Taylor is probably the best player in our league and one of the best players in the country that no one ever talks about. Defensively he can guard the one, two or three and he’s an exceptional athlete and an exceptional kid. They’re really physical and they’re really strong and can play inside out. All the teams under Kevin Stallings leadership have improved from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. You can just look at some of the kids in the program like Lance Goldbourne and how much he’s improved physically and from a skills standpoint. Coming off a loss we’re going to get their best effort, they’re going to be extremely testy and ready to play. Obviously they’re playing for seeding and for momentum heading into the SEC tournament. This is one of the teams that was picked to win our league”
On the way the team responded at the end of the game against Mississippi State …
“I think we played good offense. When you look at the game in general they shot at a very high percentage and they out rebounded us, but I think our ability to shoot the basketball with confidence. We knew going into the game because of how they defend the ball there were going to be guys with open shots and deep shots, and what I liked was the kids stepped up with confidence and shot the ball. I don’t want to say it was our defense it was our composure and our ability to not get down on ourselves and continue to fight through. Offensively when you’re making baskets it hides a lot of deficiencies. It’s tough to win there, there are three or four guys on the team that were here my first year when we went in there and won in double overtime. That’s a good win for this team especially when you look at what’s been going on here as of late. I think the credit needs to go to these kids because they haven’t stopped working and they haven’t stopped competing and they haven’t stopped trying.”
On what he told the team after the win …
“Immediately after the game my sense of humor and my approach is the same. I just went in there and said ‘Good job, now let’s get on the bus and get on the plane and get out of here.’ What’s unique about these guys it they are one of the quietest teams I’ve ever been around. Win or lose you wouldn’t know, and I think it speaks volumes that the stewardess on the charter plane talked about how nice these kids are and how quiet they are. We get on the plane and they all went to sleep, then when they got off and got on the bus ride back and I just told them the schedule for the upcoming games. There wasn’t a lot of celebrating, if anything it was just a sense of relief on their part, but for me it’s the same old drill.”
On if it’s experience that is allowing LSU to not panic when they get down in games and make comebacks …
“I think the key was in the first half when we were down 12 or 13 and Aaron (Dotson) took the same shots he has taken all year long and made a couple. Andre (Stringer) came off a couple staggered screens and knocked down a couple threes. Normally when we are in that situation it starts to snowball, but it hasn’t happened as of late. It was nice to see.”
On Aaron Dotson‘s performance off the bench in the win …
“He’s about winning, he’s about team and he’s about contributing to this team. He bottles up a lot of his personal issues, I think nobody wants to talk about it and he doesn’t want to talk about it, I try and stay away from it. When you’re involved in a situation like that it’s going to eat away at you, but he’s not about excuses. The most important thing is he’s got a great support system from his family and from his teammates and his coaching staff. All you can do is be there for him and ask him how he’s doing, and he always has the same answer of ‘Coach, I’m fine.'”
On Andre Stringer scoring the layup at the end of the game instead of running off more clock …
“He was in the situation before where he wasn’t aggressive. I told him and the team in general in the timeouts that no matter what goes on be aggressive and play to win as opposed to play not to lose. If you’re going to make a bad decision at least make it an aggressive bad decision, don’t be tentative. The lane opened up for him. When you look at this game, that’s what we thought this team was going to be like going into the season in terms of everybody contributing. Eddie (Ludwig) comes in off the bench and makes a couple crucial free throws, Ralston (Turner’s) a scorer, Storm (Warren) is back to being Storm, Garrett (Green) gave us a good layup and you can just go right down the line. For whatever reason it hadn’t gotten to that, so it was nice to see.”
On if he was happy about the win …
“My happiness is for the players. It’s not about me and like I said I’ve been there and done that. If I was 33 years old and this was my first time around it would have been a little different. My thoughts are always on the kids because they’ve been working so hard and you like to see them rewarded. That’s always going to be the case.”
On if the confidence from the Mississippi State win will help LSU against Vanderbilt …
“This is a different team, this is one of the top three or four teams in our league and this is a team that’s ranked. This is an experienced team. Jenkins shoots it from anywhere and everywhere. I didn’t get a chance to see him last year and I don’t think I’m looking forward to seeing him on Saturday. You just look at their team and their program and there are 11 or 12 guys that understand their role. We’re going to have to play as good as we’ve played. It’s going to be a different kind of game than what we just played against Mississippi State because they’re going to guard you and they’re going to be physical with you. I don’t think they’re going to just sit back there and let our perimeter guys go out there and shoot it. It’s real important that we get off to a good start and it’s real important that we match their physicality. Vanderbilt’s lost two games in a row only a couple times in the last three years. The guys should feel good about themselves and have a little bit of confidence, but that’s not going to get it done on the floor.”