It’s not a novelty concept for LSU men’s basketball coach Johnny Jones.
If you happened to walk through Free Speech Plaza on Tuesday, Jones and his staff may have run you down with a schedule, persuading you to head to the PMAC this season. He’s been doing it since he returned to his alma mater for the 2012 season and is as active as any coach can get when it comes to marketing his team.
The fourth-year coach knows as well as anybody — to get butts in the seats and recreate the magic that was “The Deaf Dome,” the product on the floor must be quality. But when the No. 21 Tigers officially tip off against McNeese State University at 8 p.m. tonight, a larger-than-normal crowd for a season opener may tell a different story.
And a group of three freshmen, one of which being the Southeastern Conference Preseason Player of the Year and the fourth freshman in NCAA history to earn preseason First-Team All-America honors, will certainly help with that.
“For me, I haven’t done anything until I make it,” said freshman forward Ben Simmons. “And making it for me is being the best player in the world.”
Simmons, along with freshmen guards Antonio Blakeney and Brandon Sampson, joins a solid but incomplete list of veterans to start the season looking to improve on a second-round exit in the NCAA Tournament last season.
Gone are NBA draft picks Jarell Martin and Jordan Mickey, but the returners, led by junior guard Tim Quarterman, will attempt to replicate the leadership role senior guard Keith Hornsby brings on the floor as he recovers from an injury for the foreseeable future.
For Quarterman, tonight gives him a chance to officially erase the “big headache” from the last-second loss to North Carolina State University in the NCAA Tournament, when LSU relinquished a 16-point lead in the second half.
“When you lose, the tournament keeps going. We lost so early and then to see what [NC State] was able to accomplish by beating Villanova [University ] and going to the Sweet 16, having a chance against [University of] Louisville. You just picture yourself where you figure you could have been.
The sickening feeling eventually faded and all eyes are now on potential postseason run. To do that, the Tigers need to find a balance in the frontcourt, an evident weakness with the loss of Martin and Mickey, to match the depth in the backcourt.
While the Tigers are hoping to get consistent production from sophomore Elbert Robinson III, a 7-foot-1 center who spent most of last season getting in shape, rebounding became a point of emphasis after LSU’s 98-72 exhibition win against Southwest Baptist University.
“We have to get better,” Jones said. “We were a bigger, stronger and more athletic team. They out-rebounded us, and that’s not something that we can allow to happen…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.”