BATON ROUGE – The countdown clock to 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 13, for LSU men’s basketball can officially begin at 3 p.m. Monday when the Tigers and Coach Johnny Jones take to the court of the LSU Practice Facility.
While there has been a trip to Australia for an exhibition tour in August and a couple weeks of individual drills in September, now the serious work begins as LSU starts its set of 30 allowed team practices prior to the opening game of the 2015-16 season on Nov. 13 against McNeese State at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
NCAA rules allow teams 30 practices in a 42-day period dating back from a team’s first game. LSU will elect to take their 30 practices in the next 39 days with most weeks having five practices and one six-day practice week leading to the opening regular season game. Included in that will be a Nov. 6 exhibition contest at the Maravich Center with Southwest Baptist.
“Our practices will be a little different because we had the 10 days of practice prior to our (Australia) tour, said Coach Jones, who enters his fourth season as the head coach at LSU. “At the same time, we have also been allotted our two hours per weeks with our guys leading up (to Monday). But never-the-less, we are excited and enthusiastic about starting our full-scale practices with our new look team. All the guys are really excited about getting started in preparation for a very tough and grueling schedule ahead.”
The Tigers, who have three different players on the various selection of preseason college basketball magazines that can be found on local magazine racks (freshman Ben Simmons, senior Keith Hornsby, junior Tim Quarterman), were 3-2 on their five-game tour of Australia in August.
In that tour, the coaching staff was able to put together various combinations of players helping the team get an early start on finding the chemistry it will need to have success in the Southeastern Conference.
Simmons averaged 20 points in the five games, one of five players in double figures on the tour, while also averaging 9.0 rebounds a game and more than five assists a contest. Quarterman averaged 16.4 points and averaged more than four assists. Freshman Antonio Blakeney averaged 13.8 points a game, Hornsby 12.2 points and freshman Brandon Sampson averaged 11.8 points a contest (making 12-of-26 three-pointers from the FIBA international three-point line).
LSU, which averaged 87.2 points a game in the five games, has moved ahead of some teams in preparation because of the tour, but Coach Jones is aware that the fundamentals of the game can’t be overlooked even with the extra practice time LSU has had.
“We won’t take anything for granted,” he said. “We will continue to break everything down as we always have in the past to make sure that we don’t miss anything with our guys. Just like in years when we would have an experienced team we always like to start from the beginning. What (the tour practice sessions) could do is allow us to move along a little faster than normal, but the same things that we’ve always done will be introduced to this team so we can make sure we continue to develop great habits.”
The Tigers have won 19, 20 and 22 games in Coach Jones’ first three years at LSU, with post-season appearances the last two seasons. Jones has won more games than any LSU head coach in their first three seasons at LSU and he is the only Tiger coach to take teams to post-season play twice in those first three seasons.
LSU will be working to replace two NBA draft selections from the season before – Jarell Martin and Jordan Mickey. Both Hornsby and Quarterman averaged in double figures last season to lead returnees as Hornsby averaged 13.4 points per game and Quarterman 11.5 points a game and 4.0 assists a game. LSU will look to the number three recruiting class in the country to replace some of the 32 points and 19 rebounds that Martin and Mickey posted last season.
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