BATON ROUGE – With the season opener just over 48 hours away, LSU men’s basketball coach visited with the media to discuss the Friday night opener with McNeese State at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The game is set for 8 p.m. at the Maravich Center and will be broadcast on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Eagle 98.1 FM) and televised on ESPNU.
Tickets for the game and season tickets remain on sale at LSUtix.net.
Here are some of Coach Jones’ comments heading into Thursday’s final practice prior to the first of three home games in seven days to open the season, including comments on LSU’s first signee papers approved by LSU compliance on Wednesday, Kieran Hayward:
HEAD COACH JOHNNY JONES
Opening Statement…
“It’s here and our guys are excited and really looking forward to Friday to kicking off of the season. I think what they’ve done from last year’s team, reaching the NCAA tournament, a top recruiting class and the excitement that has been around the program, culminated into season ticket sales. They have been the best they’ve been over the last 20 years. We certainly are excited about that and are looking forward to the challenges ahead and looking forward to, hopefully, a great home court advantage that great crowds have the ability to present for us.
“We know we are entering the season without Keith Hornsby, which will certainly be a challenge for us. Keith is a guy who has the most experience for us in terms of scoring. Because of his injury, he will be sidelined, with him being the top scorer returning from last year’s team, it’s certainly a little setback for us. But, we have a core of guys, including two freshman that play the wing position that are looking for an opportunity to hopefully fill that void for us.
“We are excited from our trip to Australia to our exhibition games and are looking forward to what we think will be a great season. But it starts on Friday against McNeese, a team that we are very familiar with and look forward to those challenges ahead.”
On Keith Hornsby‘s progression since the surgery…
“He’s doing good since his surgery. He’s been progressing well. I think we said prior to Christmas, and we are hoping sooner than later. We are hopeful that it will be sooner because of the prognosis and how well his rehab has been going. We are hopeful that we will get him back.”
On what he learned about the team from the exhibition game Friday…
“I thought we got off to a great start. One of the things we wanted to do was play within ourselves. We talked about it not being about our opponent and it being about us and make sure that we are doing the things necessary to make sure that we are executing at a certain level on both ends of the floor. I thought we were able to do that. Defensively, we were connected, attached. I thought we were in unison there and played extremely well. I thought on the offensive end, we shared the ball and shot a little over 50 from the field, which was there in the first half. I thought it was good for us. I thought for the first time out in front of our crowd with all of the excitement that has been around these guys, I thought they did a great job with being able to remain focused. I thought the second half, as teams do with big leads. We lost a little bit of that focus, but I think that’s a part of our youth. We know that as games go, we will get better with that.”
On Brandon Sampson…
“I think Brandon came out and played well. I tell people I thought Brandon was one of the key guys for us when we were in Australia. I thought he played like the top two or three guys on the team there. At the same time, he didn’t have an opportunity to play in our scrimmage. I thought he came up and played big, came off of the bench Friday, put up some good numbers for us and then shot the ball extremely well and shot a really good percentage and has continued to defend extremely well. We love his growth and how quick he’s really come along for us. We are very pleased with what he is doing.”
On Kieran Hayward…
“Kieran Hayward is the one that we have in, an Australian kid that visited over the weekend,” said Jones in his media session. “Kieran is an excellent shooter and continues to develop. He came over and played with one of his AAU teams during the summer. He had really a good summer and took a couple of visits early on and … ended up committing on his visit. We are excited about him coming in next year, especially after we are going to lose guys like a Keith Hornsby. We are hopeful as a freshman that he can come in and these guys continue to improve that are on our team now and hopefully he will come in and be one of those guys who will be able to play a role like that. I think his strength is shooting the basketball. It’s probably one of his biggest strengths.”
On Ben Simmons‘ game last Friday…
“I thought Ben played well. It was interesting because of his brother on the other bench as an assistant coach. That made it really interesting for him with his family being here in the stands. I thought he did a good job of being focused and trying to play balanced and making plays and not trying to do too much. I thought he played well within himself in that game. I thought he certainly had a big impact on it.”
On the rebounding in Friday’s exhibition contest…
“I think we got out-rebounded by 11 on the glass. We did a good job defending. They only shot about 26-27 percent from the field in the first half. We wound up giving up eight or nine rebounds at that time. We have to get better. We were a bigger, stronger and more athletic team. They out-rebounded us, and that’s not something that we can allow to happen. We have to do a much better job. For us to be a really good basketball team, we are going to have to rebound the ball well, and we are going to have to defend well. If we can do those two things, we will certainly have a great deal of success. That’s something our main focus has been on this week.”