BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s basketball team will host the Alabama Crimson Tide Wednesday night at 8 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center and the Tigers, tied for first in the SEC with a 9-3 record, went back to work Monday afternoon in preparation for the second meeting this season between the two teams.
Tickets for the game are available with a special $7 ticket promotion for tickets in the upper 300 level of the building. Also, one of the most popular halftime acts to ever come to the Maravich Center, “Quick Change” will be on hand for the game. Tickets are available at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office and online at LSUtix.net.
The Tigers, 16-9 overall, are coming off a 76-71 win over Texas A&M on Saturday at the Maravich Center and is tied for the league lead with Kentucky. South Carolina is a game back at 8-4. Alabama is 6-6 in the league having won four straight games coming into Baton Rouge including a win at Florida on Saturday.
Also, the weekly SEC release posted that the Florida at LSU game would tip at 7:30 p.m. CT on Feb. 27 on either ESPN or ESPN2. The unveiling of the statue of Bob Pettit will take place earlier that afternoon outside the Maravich Center.
Coach Johnny Jones met with the media on Monday and here are some of his comments heading into the week that includes a Saturday road trip to Tennessee:
Opening Statement…
“It certainly felt good after a big win on Saturday. Our guys finished and really played a great 40 minutes and were extremely focused in a lot of areas. A lot of good things happened. There was a lot of good individual play as well as team play and guys stepping up and doing great things that allowed us a big victory here at home. We are certainly looking forward to a great challenge on Wednesday against another team that has won five out of its last six games in Alabama. Those guys have had some big wins and the latest beating a Florida team on the road. Through that excitement we understand where we sit, where we are, and we are excited about being in first place in the league but certainly not satisfied or comfortable with where we are. You can be assured that our preparation and work for Wednesday night’s game against Alabama will have our full focus on what we need to do to hopefully continue to improve as we get better through this conference march. “
On Alabama’s recent success…
“They are executing offensively, making plays. They are continuing to learn each other in obviously a new system that has been implemented with them with Coach Johnson. They are obviously becoming more confident with it. Defensively, they’ve done a really good job. They have good, solid players and a great group of guys. They have a big lineup, good size. They are executing at a really good level on the offensive end, and it seems like they’re in unison on the defensive end as well. They showed that, especially late in the game against Florida on the road.”
On his relationship with Alabama head coach Avery Johnson…
“I was fortunate that when Avery Johnson was coaching the Mavericks, I was the head coach at North Texas. They were supposed to go overseas for their training camp, but prior to that we had been friends. I’d go down there and watch his teams play and spend time with them at practices. He asked if it would help our team and program if he was able to bring his team to training camp up at the University of North Texas instead of going overseas, and I jumped all over it. He was able to bring his team up there, made them check into a hotel for a couple of days. We had an opportunity to spend a lot of time together then as well. I spent a lot of time at his practices when he was with the Mavericks and took in a lot of his games. Then, we would have lunch or something like that on occasion when he was there. He has a son that played AAU basketball. Our circles would certainly interact there as well. We spent a lot of time together. I have come to really appreciate his position, what he serves as a coach. I think he does a tremendous job and is an exceptional leader in what he’s done. I knew he had a great interest in coaching at the college level once he was finishing up with the pros.”
On Brian Bridgewater’s performance in the game against Texas A&M…
“Any of our guys when they come in off of the bench, you want to see what type of impact they are going to make and the level that they are executing and what the comfort zone is. Some guys are more impactful than others. Some guys have that edge about them. A lot of times you have to see that early. As a coach, you get to know your players. They kind of get into the flow. If they come in and there’s a quick turnover, did they get beat defensively? Did they miss a defensive assignment or something like that? When those things happen, you have to quickly make an adjustment or move because of the caliber of competition we play against night-in and night-out. You can’t have a whole lot of slippage and bounce back from it. You are hopeful that they can come in and make some positive plays for you and lessen the mistakes.”
On the bench rotation …
“The only problem is when guys go through injuries or miss games sometimes it kind of throws your rotation off. It’s hard sometimes to get back into a rotation when you’ve been down, be it via injury or what have you, because someone else may have stepped up. It’s hard to break that bond or the chemistry of your team. Doing that, sometimes you’re forced to because of foul trouble, injuries or whatever. Guys may come in and play well for a length of time, and if they do that, then that kind of gets them back into putting them back into the rotation situation. It’s difficult, and it’s small. Like on Saturday, we kept our rotation pretty tight there in the second half. We only made one or two substitutions during that whole entire second half.”
On optimizing the offense…
“The good thing is we have great weapons out there on the floor. We have several guys who can really score and have big nights for us. We are most effective when we have a balanced scoring night. Teams are going to try to take certain things away from you … Whatever the defense is giving us, we have to make sure we are doing a great job of taking advantage of it. For the most part, we did that Saturday. Guys were patient with the basketball. We made extra passes, be it one-on-one situations in the post or if we got looks from the outside late in the clock. Guys shot at a high percentage, knocked shots down. That’s something we are looking for. That type of balance really puts your opponent in a really tough situation when you’re executing at that level.”
On how difficult it is to play an opponent twice…
“Especially in basketball, you get to know each other. You obviously have a home and home schedule. If you have success, you want to build on that. If you had a setback, you try to think about the things that you did not do well and areas that you may be able to attack to have more success in that upcoming game. You can look at us and the Texas A&M game and other opponents that we’ve played. Anytime you’re in the second round of conference play, it’s going to be different for you. Your teams are more fine-tuned, and the games are always tougher, regardless of if you’ve had success or a setback in those games.”
On Tim Quarterman’s impact on the game…
“Tim Quarterman can impact our team in a positive way when he’s playing well and when he’s got a lot of things going and is making the right decisions for our team. That will allow for the depth of our team to show. If he’s not, then someone else will have to probably play maximum minutes out there. We love for him to be out there on the floor with our guys because of his experience and what he has done. We like to able to count on him night-in and night-out. When he’s that way, it allows our team to be very effective.”