The LSU men’s basketball team received its 2009 Southeastern Conference championship rings just two weeks ago, but LSU coach Trent Johnson doesn’t want to hear about it.”In a perfect world, we would’ve gotten them the day after we played, and they would’ve been able to enjoy it for a week in April and that’s it,” Johnson said. “I told them to wear it for two weeks and come Oct. 16, I don’t want to see them.”The 2009 SEC Coach of the Year and his team met with media Tuesday with the start of fall practice looming this Friday. The season begins Nov. 13, and LSU has a little less than a month to answer a lot of questions about the upcoming campaign.The Tigers lost three starters from last season’s 27-8 SEC championship team, including SEC Player of the Year Marcus Thornton, all of whom are playing professionally.”Marcus Thornton is probably going to play or start for the Hornets. Garrett Temple has the opportunity to make the Houston Rockets, Chris Johnson is over in Turkey playing right now,” Johnson said. “Too many times as coaches, as players and even as fans we all get caught up in the past and want to make comparisons.”Johnson will look to an inexperienced roster to replace the lost production. Of the players expected to carry the load this winter, only junior point guard Bo Spencer and senior forward Tasmin Mitchell have starting experience.Mitchell returned from a foot injury in 2008 to average 16.3 points and 7.2 rebounds per game in 2009, earning first team All-SEC honors, while Spencer averaged 11.4 points and 40 percent from the 3-point line while playing point guard.”There are a lot of guys right now that have a positive future,” Mitchell said. “We’ll know about that early, before our first game when Coach starts getting on us.”Senior guard Alex Farrer, sophomore forwards Storm Warren and Garrett Green, sophomore guard Chris Bass and redshirt freshman forward Dennis Harris — all returning players who are expected to start or contribute this season — combined for zero starts and all averaged less than 10 minutes per game.”This is a different team,” Johnson said. “Last year our margin of error was slim. This year we have no margin of error. We have to embrace that and understand there’s going to be some ups and downs.”Adding to the influx of inexperience are two incoming freshmen, guard Aaron Dotson and forward Eddie Ludwig, both of whom could play large roles coming off the bench.”I’m glad guys like Alex and Tasmin are here so I can learn from them,” Dotson said. “It’s good that we are a really young team. We can all grow.”Mitchell will move back outside into more of a small forward role this season after experimenting with the NBA draft in June.”I’ve been working hard on that,” Mitchell said. “Coach Johnson was telling me all over the summer, whether I was coming back or not, what I needed to work on. That’s what I really, really did over the summer was work on my perimeter game.”The move leaves the Tigers’ post game to be played by a combination of Warren, Green and Harris.Johnson seemed certain the team won’t need to shift its lineup around too much once the season starts, despite the inexperience.”I have a pretty good feel now in terms of the makeup of our team,” he said. “The questions are who are you going to go to offensively when Tasmin is taken away, when Bo is taken away … But in terms of experimenting during the course of the year and all that, no.”—-Contact David Helman at [email protected]