BATON ROUGE – LSU will have back-to-back road games this week and began preparations on Monday for Wednesday night’s 7:30 p.m. contest at the Auburn Arena with the Auburn Tigers.
LSU will play Auburn and Arkansas (Saturday) on the road this week before its next home game on Jan. 25 against Florida.
Coach Johnny Jones said on both the SEC Teleconference and during his media session that sophomore guard Antonio Blakeney, who injured an ankle late in the loss to Alabama on Saturday, would not practice on Monday. His status for Wednesday’s game will be evaluated moving forward.
Here are some of the comments from Coach Jones’ session with the local media before practice on Monday:
HEAD COACH JOHNNY JONES
Opening statement…
“Obviously you always hate talking about bouncing back from setbacks. But there’s another opportunity for us this week. It’s going to be a challenge in two venues that are always tough in Auburn and Arkansas. Both teams with the way they play and the way that they play at home are certainly always tough. We know that for us it’s important that we go back out and challenge, continue to compete and fight extremely hard. That’s our mission. We have to get back at it today in preparation for an Auburn team that we feel has a lot of weapons on the offensive end of the floor. They’ve got a lot of guys that play with a great deal of energy and excitement. They’re a good offensive basketball team that’s going to present a great challenge for us. We have to make sure we stay poised under their pressure. They’re a good pressure defensive team and they feed off of that. We have to make sure that we’re poised enough to make the right plays. Unfortunately, we didn’t do a great job of that down the stretch in the last four of five minutes of the game versus Alabama on Saturday. We’ll clean those things up and hopefully be able to execute at a better level against another good opponent in Auburn on Wednesday night.”
On if he’s talked to team about bouncing back from 0-4 start his 1st year at LSU to finish 9-9 …
“I have not brought that up … It’s early in the conference race and a lot of things can happen with a lot of games to be played. Your approach and mindset has to be as such that the most important game on your schedule and the one you have the most control over is the next one. That’s got to be our guys approach. I thought on Saturday we were in a good place for a great time. At the end of the day I think we have a lot of positive things that we can point to against a good Alabama basketball team. We’ll clean those things up in preparation for our next game. If we can pass that test then we’re closer to where we need to be. Again, it’s a young team and there’s a lot of learning be done and we’ve been put in some tough situations. These guys have to help and we have to make sure we help them figure it out as well.”
On Antonio Blakeney‘s injury situation …
“The game is going to be played and you’re going to have injuries. You have to make sure you’re focused. You can’t sit there and worry too much about injuries. You’ve got to get on to the next thing and you’re hopeful that everybody is healthy enough and ready to play. It’s like unfortunately having things change at Christmas time, you’ve got to get on to the next thing. You can’t worry about that and focus on that, you have to try to build your team and prepare and get ready. You can’t have guys focus on something that’s not available to you. We’ve got to prepare as if you’re going to have everyone and if you don’t have them other guys have to step up. You have to get ready for that as well. It’s not something that we harp on. We just have to get ready to play at a certain level and be able to compete. They’ve played the past two games without (Danjel) Purifoy. He didn’t play in the Kentucky game and I thought they were able to compete pretty well. I can assume you nobody is going to feel sorry for us. Kentucky didn’t feel sorry for Auburn when they came in. I’m sure if we don’t have our full compliment of players I don’t think Auburn is going to play a different way because of that. You have to be ready to get in and challenge and compete at a high level. That’s what we continue to work on throughout our practices and our games. We’re getting closer to that point and our guys recognize the challenge of where we are because they were competing at a certain level against a good Alabama team on Saturday. We just have to keep fine-tuning those things and get better.
On Brandon Sampson‘s offensive production in recent games…
“… Our concern has been on the defensive end of the floor, not so much offense. Because of some of the changes we’ve made, some of the productivity on offense has dropped off as far as field goal percentage and some guys scoring. We have to build our defense up and then get those guys back to scoring like they were before and shooting a high percentage. Other guys percentages have gone up, be it Skylar Mays, Duop (Reath), or Antonio Blakeney. We’ve got to find that balance because we feel like we have some effective scorers with (Aaron) Epps and Duop when those guys are in the right spots. It’s about taking the right shots at the right time and not forcing anything. If we can get that balance, improving on the defensive end and still be effective on the offensive end will be a great balance for us.”
On starting lineups…
“You talk about a 40 minute game, there’s a lot of different combinations that you’ll see out on the floor. Addressing the starters is more about how we’re getting started in the game. Tone setter is one of the terms we like to use in terms of setting the tone early in games. It’s affected how we’ve addressed our lineup. As the game plays out, because of the number of combinations you have, I’m not sure it affects the chemistry of the team at all. Those guys have to play together, a lot of time because of foul trouble or because of regular rotations that we have. At the end of the day we’re 1-4 so starting lineup really hasn’t been an issue. We haven’t gotten off to great starts like we would want to. But I thought the other night we did a better job, and our defense changed as well in terms of what we were doing to slow our opponents from getting off to a good start.”
On what determines starters…
“Intensity level and who shows that; if you are playing with an edge about you from the start. I think that is always important. Whether you are in a zone or man, intensity level weighs heavily. When guys are conscious of it and the mindset is right, that’s important. Who’s playing well together? Who’s going to take care of the basketball on the offensive end of the floor? Are we sharing and making extra passes? Are we getting attempts instead of turnovers? Is our offense able to flow effectively with those guys in? All of those things come into play, and when you have a young team like we do we unfortunately at this point in the year we are still trying to get it figure it out with some of these guys.”
On coming out and playing harder…
“I think the word is edge. You have to come out and play with it from start to finish. When teams do that they’re going to be more effective. I shared this with them the other night; the team that comes out and plays the hardest, the smartest, and the longest has an opportunity to be the most effective in a game. I thought we did that for about 34 or 35 minutes, but unfortunately we didn’t finish it off that way. There’s an intensity level that you have to play with. When teams are used to paying that way and it becomes habit forming for them, they give themselves a better chance of being successful. That’s still something that we’re trying to get to. It doesn’t unfortunately happen overnight for you, even with experienced reams. I think even then you still have to coach that way and get them to play that way to be the most effective.”
On good signs pointing forward…
“I think when you look at the game the other day against a good Alabama team, we played those guys a certain way. They wound up hitting a few key shots and unfortunately turned us over at a bad time. Those areas you can clean up. I think you can point to those things as being the difference in a game. When you’re able to point to certain things that may have caused us to have a setback, it’s a lot easier for guys to understand that those are issues that we have to address, to have an opportunity to move forward. We’ve got a lot of season left in front of us. I think you’ve seen other teams have played against each other and the competitive scores and the records of the home team versus the away team. Those are things that give you reason to keep an edge about yourself in knowing that anything can happen in sports. Getting a win under your belt certainly helps your confidence level, and I think that’s really important.”