To see a slideshow of the men’s game against UNC, click here.
 
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Few people would have expected the No. 8 seed LSU men’s basketball season to end here.Twelve months after finishing eighth in the Southeastern Conference, the 2009 SEC regular season champion Tigers gave No. 1 seed North Carolina way more than it asked for before finally succumbing to an 84-70 defeat.Most of the 22,479 people that watched the game in Greensboro Coliseum would call a conference title and a trip to the second round of the NCAA tournament a rousing success for an LSU program that finished 13-18 last season.LSU coach Trent Johnson isn’t one of those people.
“We’re not into moral victories,” Johnson said. “And as long as I’m representing the LSU Tigers men’s basketball team, we’re never going to be in moral victories. I don’t care where we play, who we play, when we play.”The Tigers played the Tar Heels to a 63-63 tie after 32 minutes of action, but North Carolina and junior guard Ty Lawson proved too much in the end, closing the game on a 21-7 run.Lawson, the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year, finished the game with 23 points — 21 of them in the second half — after being the center of more than a week of speculation spurred by his injured right toe.”He’s a pro,” Johnson said. “He’s probably one of the best point guards in the country. So for us, we knew our hands were full in trying to contain him.”One reporter asked North Carolina coach Roy Williams if the Tar Heels could have won without their injured point guard who briefly left the first half to have his toe examined.”We’ll never know,” he answered. “I didn’t feel good when I thought that he might not be coming back into the game.”Johnson’s postgame words emphasized the painful nature of his team’s final loss.  Johnson faced the robotic routine of an NCAA-sanctioned press conference with misty eyes and fought back tears when asked about his seniors.Coming from the normally stoic Johnson, that in itself is quite a gesture.”The impact they’ve had on me in just my 10 years as a head coach, it’s unlike any team I’ve been affiliated with,” he said. “I’m not a very emotional person, but much has been made about ‘Trent Johnson and this and that.’ Well, the impact these young men have had on me has been special.”Johnson will have to say goodbye to those seniors — five of them, including three starters — who have surely left their mark on the program.Guard Garrett Temple became the third Temple to play for LSU, becoming the Tigers’ all-time leader in minutes played in the process.Center Chris Johnson climbed to No. 2 on LSU’s list of blocked shots, behind only Shaquille O’Neal. Guard Marcus Thornton became the Tigers’ seventh SEC Player of the Year while climbing into the top 10 of LSU’s all-time lists of 3-pointers made and career scoring average, despite playing just two seasons in Baton Rouge.”We had a great season. I’ve had a great five years here,” Temple said. “I was lucky enough to spend four of them with Taz, two of them with Marcus, and one with coach Johnson.”One could call the trio — and indeed LSU’s entire roster — overachievers, but Trent Johnson would likely take offense to that.
“I don’t think you guys really get it sometimes,” Johnson told reporters after the North Carolina game. “You know, three and a half months of practice and what these guys did, buying in, being receptive … And the expectations on this team, there were none.”The Tigers were picked to finish second in the SEC West this season, without earning a single preseason vote to win the conference title they eventually claimed with two regular season games remaining.”Getting coach Johnson here at LSU, it’s a great building block to upstart LSU basketball again,” Temple said. “What he did with this team with the expectations we had coming in and stuff like that, it was incredible.”Many would probably agree with Temple’s sentiment, but Trent Johnson maintained that “it shouldn’t have ended like this.”With a doubled winning percentage from 2008 and a 10th SEC title hanging in the PMAC, maybe it’s not so bad that it did.
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Contact David Helman at [email protected]