BATON ROUGE – The LSU Tigers are back in the Associated Press media poll Monday after wins at Ole Miss and at home versus South Carolina.
The 14-3 Tigers host Georgia Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Maravich Center. The Tigers (4-0) and No. 1 ranked Tennessee (5-0) are the only undefeated teams remaining in the Southeastern Conference at this point. LSU won at No. 18 Ole Miss, 83-69, and 89-67 versus South Carolina.
This is LSU’s fourth appearance in the poll this season after being ranked No. 23 in the preseason poll, No. 22 in the second poll and 19 in week three. LSU received votes out of the top 25 in week four and 11 before getting back in this week’s poll with 154 points, two shy of No. 24 Iowa State with 156 points.
Also in besides the Tigers and Volunteers from the SEC are Kentucky at No. 8 (14-3), Auburn at No. 16 (13-4), Ole Miss at 20 (14-3) and Mississippi State at 22.
The Tigers were 5-2 earlier this year when ranked and overall is 265-101 as a ranked team all-time. This is the 202 poll appearance since the first poll began in 1949.
AP Top 25 – Week 12
Jan. 21, 2019
Rank Team (First-Place Votes), Record, Points, Previous
1, Tennessee (48), 16-1, 1,575, 3
2, Duke (11), 15-2, 1,520, 1
3, Virginia (3), 16-1, 1,451, 4
4, Gonzaga, 18-2, 1,374, 5
5, Michigan, 17-1, 1,363, 2
6, Michigan State (2), 16-2, 1,355, 6
7, Nevada, 18-1, 1,143, 10
8, Kentucky, 14-3, 1,087, 12
9, Kansas, 15-3, 1,060, 7
10, Virginia Tech, 15-2, 1,007, 9
11, North Carolina, 14-4, 895, 13
12, Marquette, 16-3, 861, 15
13, Maryland, 16-3, 751, 19
14, Texas Tech, 15-3, 743, 8
14, Buffalo, 17-1, 743, 16
16, Auburn, 13-4, 627, 14
17, Houston, 18-1, 544, 21
18, Villanova, 14-4, 450, 22
19, Iowa, 16-3, 332, 23
20, Ole Miss, 14-3, 291, 18
21, NC State, 15-3, 282, 17
22, Mississippi State, 14-3, 266, 24
23, Louisville, 13-5, 230, NR
24, Iowa State, 14-4, 156, NR
25, LSU, 14-3, 154, NR
Others receiving votes: Florida St. 139, Purdue 111, Kansas St 91, Nebraska 66, Wisconsin 64, Oklahoma 16, Syracuse 13, Washington 11, Murray St. 9, Cincinnati 6, Wofford 5, Saint Louis 3, San Francisco 2, Florida 2, TCU 1, Hofstra 1.
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Coach Will Wade met with the media on late Monday morning and here are some of his comments as the Tigers begin preparations for Wednesday’s 6 p.m. game with Georgia.
Opening statement…
“We’re getting ready for Georgia. They pose some challenges for us. They’ll pack their defense in. It’s a little different from South Carolina who extends the defense. It will be a bit different playing against them. We’ll be more packed in. They’re very long across the three four and the five. We’ll have to do a good job on the backboards. They killed us on the backboards last year. They have a lot of the same personnel back. We’ll have to do a better on the backboards than we did against them last year.
“Kavell got conference player of the week. That’s good he’s earned it. He did a great job of working really hard. He posted back-to-back double-doubles so I’m happy for him.”
On how critical this beginning of SEC play stretch is in their season…
“Every game is different. This is college basketball. You have a different team every day. You’ve got different groups every day. We have to win today. We have to have good practices every day. Good workouts today. Then you’ve got to win tomorrow. Hopefully that will help you win on Wednesday. It’s not something that you look too far ahead on or worry about what’s going to happen. We’re worried about getting better today and putting ourselves in a position to play well against Georgia on Wednesday at six o’clock. That’s what matters. There’s so many other factors that go into everything. You can’t look very far ahead in this league.”
On how Kavell has bounced back following a down performance at Arkansas…
“Really nice. He did a great job. He kind of got a little bit out of himself against Arkansas. He probably got a little too caught up in the one-on-one matchup. He didn’t really play to his strengths. He tried to be somebody he’s not. When he plays to his strengths like he has in three of the four SEC games, he’s one of the best big guys in the SEC. He’s a problem with how big he is and how hard he runs. It’s really just as simple as, ‘hey be yourself.’ You don’t have to be anybody else, just be the best version of yourself. That’ll be plenty good enough.”
On preparing for a Georgia team …
“Did you watch the two Georgia games last year? We don’t have anybody in that locker room that’s beaten Georgia. We didn’t beat them two years ago. We got blasted at their place last year. We lost here. We were 0-3 against Georgia. If you can’t get excited to beat Georgia – that should be motivation. We need to play better. They have a lot of guys in their locker room that have beaten the hell out of LSU a few times. We need to make sure that we’re ready to play and do something we’ve never done – beat them – in three years. It would be nice if we could focus on that.”
On how connected this team is with each other…
“You look at our bench and see how into it everybody on our bench is. We’ve got just a good way about it. It’s everybody. Our scout team does a phenomenal job. You’ve got Courtese Cooper who’s going to be a good player for us – a kid we’re red shirting, 6-9 kid – he’s put on some weight and he’s going to be a really good player for us. You’ve got Coop, then you’ve got Aundre Hyatt – we’re redshirting both of them. They give us a great look in practice. Hyatt is an absolute sniper. Anybody who’s got a shooter, he does a great job. Marshall Graves is tremendous on the scout team. Will Reese is one of the smarter players we have. He does a great job on the scout team. It’s not just the guys who play. Those guys understand what it takes to help our team prepare. Those scout team guys have done a phenomenal job. I said that in front of our team the other day. I thought they got us ready to go against Arkansas. They had us as prepared as we could have been for Arkansas, including Coop looking like (Daniel) Gafford in practice. We couldn’t stop Coop in practice just like we couldn’t stop Gafford in the game. Those guys do a great job preparing. Those guys play their role. They’re into the game. Marshall is smart as heck now basketball-wise. He has great suggestions. It’s like we have another coach over there.
“Then you have the guys who are playing and everybody is getting playing minutes. We share the ball extremely well. Sometimes we almost over-pass. I just think we have a good rhythm to us, a good chemistry to us right now. The guys enjoy being around each other. We have a bunch of different personalities, but that’s what makes it fun. We’re having a fun time. They’ve been fun to coach the last month or so. We’re continuing to get better and we’re going to keep it moving.”
On how team culture is built and naturally occurs…
“You have to put them in positions where they will step outside their comfort zone and hang out with people they would not necessarily hang out with before. We try to do that by who we room everyone with on the road. We try to be very direct with what we are doing as far as connecting people who need to connect. We try to get the right guys with the right guys. We do not want anyone left behind, we want everybody to connect with someone and connect with a group of people on our team. I feel like we have that right now. Right now, we have one group, which is what you want. On most teams, you have two or three groups of guys that hang out. We have one big, solid group right now, which is good.”
On winning games through shooting, rebounding and free throws…
“I will be excited when we do all that in one game. Until then, I am trying to figure out how to get us to do that all in one game. We have a versatile team that can win games different ways, which is different than how we were. We still have a lot of work to do. There are no shortcuts and we just have to lockdown on the details and get better.”
On being ranked again…
“We did not handle it very well the first time we were ranked. Hopefully we will handle it better, but there are no shortcuts. Human nature is to relax, human nature is to give in a little bit. You have to fight human nature, double down on what you do, be tougher in what you do, be better with your details, be better with how hard you compete and be better with how connected you are in a group. All that stuff has to be better and hopefully we have learned from the first time because we handled it very poorly.”
On the team’s athleticism…
“This is as athletic of a group I have coached. That is what you want, we realized quickly about halfway through last year that you better have athletes. We have to go out and get them. This is an athletic league, everyone has good players, everyone has good athletes and we felt like we had some ground to make up there. My staff did a great job identifying some guys and we went out and got some guys that could make a difference for us. I do feel like we are long, we are athletic and we get that in the game, which is more important. Our guys do a good job of getting that in the game.”