Coming off its worst offensive performance of the season with a mere 49 points in a road loss to Ole Miss, the LSU men’s basketball team responded like coach John Brady hoped they would in Thursday’s practice.
The Tigers’ seventh-year coach said the team competed harder, made shots, encouraged each other throughout the session and did not look like a team in a two-game losing skid.
“If we’d done this last night, we would have won,” Brady said. “We competed today and really made some progress.”
LSU (12-3, 2-2 Southeastern Conference) lost to Mississippi State 64-54 in the PMAC on Saturday before falling to Ole Miss on Wednesday. The Tigers stay on the road this Saturday against No. 25 South Carolina (16-2, 3-1) for a 6:30 p.m. tilt.
“The trick is getting it to carry over to Saturday,” Brady said. “Losing is not the worst thing that can happen to you. It’s how you play the game. We didn’t play the game as I would like us to play or as we’ve played in the past. We didn’t compete as we should have. But today we competed, made shots and encouraged each other. We really got better today and I was pleased with that.”
Freshman forward Brandon Bass said the team has to make the game more fun by playing with more emotion.
“The teams we’ve been playing against have been showing more emotion than us,” Bass said. “We’ve got to start showing more emotion against them. I think when we play with emotion, it’s tough to beat us. You see how we compete against each other [in practice]. We got after each other. We’ve got to start getting after other people like that.”
Perhaps Thursday’s practice was a start.
“I think that’s one of the best practices we’ve had since the beginning of the season,” sophomore guard Darrel Mitchell said. “If we can carry that over into the game on Saturday, we’ll be just fine.”
Mitchell would like to improve on his performance Wednesday night. One of the team’s leading offensive contributors, who is averaging 10.5 points per game, was held to 1 point on 0-for-4 shooting against the Rebels.
“I took some key shots at the end and they just didn’t fall,” Mitchell said.
Brady said the Gamecocks, coached by Dave Odom, are one of the more improved teams in the SEC. South Carolina has not played since Saturday’s 85-64 win against Tennessee.
“They’ve added one significant player and have an entire team coming back from last year that no one thought was any good,” Brady said. “They’re pressing more and they have more experience. They’re playing better and playing with a lot more confidence. I think coach Odom has done a nice job with a team that no one thought was any good last year. Their team is really good right now, probably one of the top three or four teams in the league.”
That new player for the Gamecocks is junior guard Josh Gonner, who scored 24 points against the Volunteers. The Gamecocks’ leading scorer is junior forward Carlos Powell, who is averaging 14.2 points and 7.1 rebounds per game.
“Coach told us they’re going to have a lot of traps, and they’re a good solid team,” Bass said. “Saturday we’ve got to come play and compete.”
Brady expects his Tigers to keep improving, but he knows it has to come in steps. He expects them to compete well Saturday against South Carolina.
“I like guys who compete,” Brady said. “I know with a young team I can’t come at them as hard as I would for a veteran team because they can’t absorb it. We’re just going to encourage them to play hard and compete and shoot good shots. The big thing [Thursday] was we came back and responded well in practice and got better.”