With just one tune-up left before the LSU men’s basketball team opens the season Friday, coach John Brady said he has focused on instilling some new ideas in the team for tonight’s exhibition game. LSU will wrap up its preseason schedule against LSU-Shreveport at 7 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
“Our execution was pretty good in the first exhibition game,” Brady said. “But since, we’ve worked on more zone and press offenses. We’ve really added some things to our offense that we didn’t have prior to the first exhibition.”
LSU is coming off a 74-54 victory last Thursday in its first exhibition game against EA Sports.
According to Brady, the team will be a lot closer to being prepared after tonight’s exhibition.
“We still won’t have everything in after this exhibition,” Brady said. “But we’ll have it a lot closer to having it all packaged together than we did before.”
LSU is led by senior point guard Darrel Mitchell, who scored 17 points with five assists and five steals in last week’s win. Mitchell is joined by freshman Tasmin Mitchell, who totaled 14 points against EA Sports despite a slow start.
“I have to accept the shots that are given to me,” Tasmin Mitchell said. “They weren’t bad shots. They just weren’t falling.”
Tasmin Mitchell missed his first six shots in his debut last week at LSU.
Brady said Tasmin Mitchell, Louisiana’s Mr. Basketball in 2005, had some trouble learning the ropes of college ball.
“At times, the new learning slows him down,” Brady said. “But that’s expected. He’s further ahead of where most freshman should be. He expects a lot out of himself, and we expect a lot out of him.”
Despite holding EA Sports to 37 percent shooting in last week’s win, junior forward Darnell Lazare said there is always room for improvement on defense.
“We want to work on pushing the ball and getting easy baskets,” Lazare said. “Defensively, we did a good job. But we can always get better at rebounding.”
LSU outrebounded EA Sports 34-27 while committing just nine turnovers. LSU forced 20 turnovers out of EA Sports.
“From an execution standpoint, I’m pleased,” Brady said. “We don’t retain some learning as fast as I’d like, but with seven freshman, that’s going to happen.”
Despite playing just two exhibition games before the start of the season, Brady said that number is enough for his team.
“I think two [games] is plenty,” Brady said. “We’re able to get a feel for what we need to do and what we need to get better at.”
LSU will open its regular season this Friday night in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center against Southern University.
“I like where we are and what we’re doing,” Brady said. “Our guys are looking forward to the exhibition and starting the season Friday night.”