BATON ROUGE – LSU men’s basketball coach Johnny Jones spoke about the two seniors who will be honored on Wednesday prior to LSU’s game with Tennessee.
Tip for the game at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center is 6 p.m. with the senior tribute at 5:45 p.m.
Brian Bridgewater and Brandon Eddlestone are the two seniors who will be honored along with managers Matthew Winsberg, Wade Langlois and Karlton Ginn.
Here are some of Coach Jones’ comments:
HEAD COACH JOHNNY JONES
On having four-year walk-on players like Brandon Eddlestone on the team…
“It’s great. With the scholarship limitation, it used to be 15 and now it’s down to 13, any time you have an open scholarship, you generally have walk-ons that are guys who have been around the program to allow you to have full-scale practices. You have to be real diligent in the guys you keep and what they bring to the team as well. You have to make sure they understand what their role will be. They may not have the opportunity to be on the floor on a consistent basis out there playing. It’s more so how will they practice? How will they be in the locker room? What do they bring to your team? We’ve been very fortunate over the last couple of years to have guys that have been outstanding at playing that role and have had the opportunity to be rewarded scholarships. Both of them have been extremely deserving, when you talk about Eddlestone and Henry Shortess (last year). Both of them have carried their weight and we’re really proud and happy to have guys like that in our program. They’ve certainly served positively in what they’ve contributed to our team. ”
On Brian Bridgewater being a spark on Saturday…
“I think Bridgewater has gone through an injury-riddled career so to speak. Unfortunately he’s been banged up and hurt most of his career, but I thought the other night at Georgia was one of his finest efforts and maybe his best game overall of his career with the impact that he made in taking away their post guy. Offensively, he scored in the post and he got to the free throw line and made his free throws. He helped in the pick and roll action. I thought it was his most complete overall game that he’s played for us.”
On how it feels being able to give players like Brandon Eddlestone a scholarship…
“We’ve been really excited and thrilled. Any time you have people that are a part of your life and they’re doing something that’s positive, if there’s any way you can reach back out to them and show your gratitude toward them and do something positive, in this case giving him a scholarship and getting him back here for his senior year, it means a great deal to us because of the impact that he makes on our basketball team. But to have an opportunity to help him in a way where he’s put so much in for our team, we’re always excited to be able to put guys in that position and you wish that those kind of things could happen more often.”
On if he knew Brandon Eddlestone wasn’t sure about coming back…
“Yep. It was one of those situations where some of those guys who are paying their way through school are working a couple of jobs to pay for schooling. I knew he was along those lines and wasn’t going to have an opportunity to do that and have a chance to be on the floor with us. He was going to have to pick or choose one way or the other and I didn’t want to put him in that position if we could help him. We had a scholarship available and we wanted to offer that opportunity to him. He accepted it and we welcomed him with open arms because of it.”