LSU men’s basketball coach Trent Johnson has many reasons to be in love with his first season in Baton Rouge.The Tigers have won eight of their past nine games and have positioned themselves on the brink of being in the national top 25 for the first time since early 2007.And with a win against Mississippi State on Wednesday, the Tigers have a two-game lead in the Southeastern Conference’s Western Division and hold the tie-breaker against the Bulldogs with seven games to play in the regular season. But despite the Tigers’ success under their first-year coach, Johnson said the last thing on his mind is Valentine’s Day.”If we don’t play well against Mississippi State, you can kiss Valentine’s Day out of the window,” he said. “You can ask Mrs. Johnson that. After 28 years, I’m not worried about Valentine’s — I’m worried about winning games, trust me.”LSU will host Ole Miss at 6 p.m. in the PMAC on Saturday. Johnson is 2-2 on Valentine’s Day in his career with his most recent game coming last season in a 72-68 loss to Arizona State when Johnson was at Stanford.Johnson is one of several coaches who have been asked to trade roses and chocolate throughout their careers for the stresses of coaching during the holiday of love.Another coach whose team is competing on Valentine’s Day is LSU women’s golf coach Karen Bahnsen.Bahnsen’s Lady Tigers open their spring season this weekend in Parrish, Fla., at the Central District Invitational.Bahnsen said she doesn’t mind the busy weekend because she and her husband, LSU associate athletic director Bo Bahnsen, don’t go overboard to celebrate the holiday.”He sometimes surprises me with a nice outfit, and we go out to dinner with another couple,” she said. “Other than that, we don’t do a lot. We don’t make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day.”Senior associate athletic director Herb Vincent said he takes his wife to dinner with friends on Valentine’s Day.But this year, Vincent said dinner will have to be rescheduled because of work obligations.”Sometimes, like this year, that dinner doesn’t fall on Valentine’s Day,” he said. “If there is an athletic event on Valentine’s Day, we schedule it for another day.”One LSU coach who has the luxury of being free on Feb. 14 nearly every year is soccer coach Brian Lee. Soccer’s regular season comes to a close each year in November, and the spring season begins in late February.The downtime allows Lee to treat his wife Nancy to a full Valentine’s Day each year.”[We had] a three-day weekend in Nashville last year,” he said. “[And] dinner, tennis and Seinfeld tickets this year.”—-Contact Casey Gisclair at [email protected]