Being named the Southeastern Conference’s Coach of the Year would be cause for celebration, right?Not for LSU men’s basketball coach Trent Johnson, who didn’t seem too concerned Tuesday with the attention directed toward him. Johnson was named the SEC’s Coach of the Year after his first season in the league, and he reacted to the news with all the enthusiasm of a weather report.”It is what it is,” Johnson said. “I’ve inherited a good group of players who are good people, and I don’t have a good staff — I have an excellent staff.”LSU’s two-game losing streak to end the regular season may have something to do with Johnson’s evasive maneuvers, but his team didn’t seem so deflective when asked about their coach’s new distinction.”It’s pretty good to see coach come in his first year and do a heck of a job with us,” said sophomore guard Bo Spencer. “He’s in the race for national coach of the year too, and it’s just outstanding for him.”Johnson even interrupted his players’ praise to say, “Coach Johnson doesn’t play, and he doesn’t rebound.” But he didn’t have such a problem with the slew of postseason awards his team amassed.LSU joined Kentucky as the only SEC schools to name two players as first team All-SEC — senior guard Marcus Thornton and junior forward Tasin Mitchell.Thornton also brought home the conference’s top honor when he was named SEC Player of the Year.”It’s gratifying because of the caliber of players in this league that were mentioned for that award,” Johnson said of Thornton’s player of the year award. “It speaks volumes to what the coaches in this league think of him as a player and how he’s developed … I’m very proud of him.”Thornton won the award as the SEC’s second-leading scorer, beating out the likes of Kentucky’s Jodie Meeks and Florida’s Nick Calawthes to become LSU’s seventh player to earn the honor and its third in five seasons.”It was nice to beat [Meeks] with all the hype between me and him,” Thornton said. “Any time you’re mentioned with Shaq and Pete Maravich is always great, but I’m just trying to be humble and take it all in stride. That part of the season is over with.”Johnson gave some greater perspective to his leading scorer’s modest words.”That was one of his individual goals that he mentioned to me, going way back to the field house when I’d only been here a month,” Johnson said. “He mentioned that to me after we had talked about being in the situation of playing in meaningful games.”Thornton has certainly had his chance to play in meaningful games this season, and he cited that as the reason for his new hardware.”Last year I put up similar numbers, but we weren’t winning,” he said. “This year I put up the same amount of numbers and we won. I give credit to [my teammates]. Without winning the games I probably wouldn’t be in the conversation.”Senior guard Garrett Temple and senior center Chris Johnson also received awards. The two gained SEC All-Defensive team honors. Temple was named second team All-SEC.—-Contact David Helman at [email protected]