BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s basketball team will hold a free to the public Purple-Gold scrimmage Wednesday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

The Tigers will sign their new 2009-10 poster for fans between 6 and 7 p.m. on the floor of the Maravich Center and then following a highlight video and introductions will conduct a scrimmage to give fans a first look at the 2009-10 team.

Coach Trent Johnson and selected players met with the media on Tuesday prior to the scrimmage and here were some of the comments prior to the 13th pre-season practice:

HEAD COACH TRENT JOHNSON

Opening statement...
“Practice 12. We have a long way to go. The good thing is we give really, really good effort. I think everyone is working extremely hard. Sunday morning wasn’t extremely good. Actually it was pretty bad in terms of our intensity level, which is to be expected. For the most part I think they’re working hard. Anytime you have this many new guys it’s going to take a while. This team hopefully will be a much better team from a standpoint of executing offensively and defensively a month from now than where it is right now.”

On positives from practice so far...
“Effort. Their willingness to listen. Right now, we’re probably as healthy as we’ve been. When you have as many guys that haven’t played a lot of basketball, and when I say a lot of basketball, Bo Spencer didn’t played a lot of basketball this summer because of his injuries. Garrett Green, Dennis Harris and even Chris Bass played sparingly last year. Storm Warren. We’re having to scrimmage and put them in game-like conditions as much as possible as opposed to rolling back and cleaning up defensively. It’s a juggling match right now. But for the most part I feel good about the effort and I feel good about sustaining intensity. I’ve said it. There is no error. There is no margin of error with this team at all.”

On biggest difference between this season’s team and last season’s team...
“It’s a different team. Athletic ability. Length. Experience. A lot of things. I try to stay away from comparisons. I’ve always been like that. This is a different team. There is a different vision.”

On scrimmaging for experience...
“We have to play. Garrett Green hasn’t played basketball in probably two years. Dennis Harris’s last competitive action in terms of playing in games with a clock and an official was in high school. There lies the juggling match. This time last year we were working on situations where we were harping on defense, breakdown drills, so on and so forth. With this team, it’s a different approach. We’re putting them in what I call hold part hold, game-like situations and then coming back and breaking it down. Again, it’s going to take time. You have to be patient. We have to be patient. I have to be patient. They have to, and we have to compete with a sense of urgency. We took a step back. It’s OK to come out 11 days and be good, but it’s not ok to be bad the 12th day. We were bad.”

On what to look forward to at Wednesday’s  scrimmage...
“We’re going to play. It will be good form. Again, it will be their first time in front of fans. We’re going to look at different combinations and hopefully be able to play a full game. Before we play I want to acknowledge our fans and thank them for their support. Obviously I want the fans to understand that as great as we were last year we’re going to need them even more so this year.”

On team leadership this season...
“Tas ... Bo sometimes. It’s still a work in progress. Those two guys can’t do it alone. I’ve always said this. When you have 13 or 14 guys on a team and they are all being held accountable for what they do socially, athletically, academically to each other and doing what’s right, then you have a pretty good basketball team which will maximize their ability. We’re a long ways from there. Tasmin is very vocal. His experience has built him respect there. Bo (Spencer) has to continue to improve. Alex Farrer is really quiet and doesn’t say much. From his standpoint, he has to play with a lot more urgency. If you put a microphone in front of him, he’ll probably talk to you until you’re blue in the face but on the floor it’s a different thing. We need to get it from a lot of people. That’s to emerge. It’s too early.”

Guard Bo Spencer

On the open scrimmage ...
“I would tell the fans to come out and support us. We have been trying to come together as a team and gel. We lost a lot of scoring ability and senior leadership but we are trying to pull it together. We are going to come out and show the crowd that we are going to bring LSU basketball back.”

On the difference between this year’s team and last year’s team ...
“Experience and leadership is really the main difference, but we have heart and everyone out here loves to play the game. We all give 110 percent every time we step out on the court.”

On his new leadership role ...
“I am embracing it but I am taking it slowly. The coaches talk to me all the time about it and I am ready for it. I think I can lead my team. Last year I was a ‘lead-by-example’ guy because I didn’t do a lot of talking. This year I am going to try and be more vocal because the coaches want me to.”

Guard Aaron Dotson

On coming in as freshman ...
“Right now I am just trying to get used to playing at the fast pace. It is a lot different from high school. I am trying to get back in my rhythm up and down the court and trying to get back into shape. My knee is feeling a lot better and it is around 80 percent. As a team we are just trying to stick together right now. We are trying to learn from the guys that have been here for a while. We have just been working really hard doing what coach says.”

On the jump from high school to being a college basketball player ...
“It is actually quite scary how fast it came. It is really exciting when you walk through campus and see your poster and stuff like that. People know who you are and it is really exciting.”

On what people can expect at the scrimmage tomorrow ...
“Just expect everyone to play hard and give a full effort. Everyone is going to try and execute what the game plan is.”

Guard Alex Farrer

On his new leadership role ...
“Obviously there is more pressure and people are going to look up to me to do things, but at the same time there is no difference for me. I am just going about it as usual and I am excited.”

On the difficulties of having so many new players ...
“It is just getting used to each other and each other’s tendencies. How we like to shoot, where we like the ball positioned and other little things like that. Everyone is just kind of learning on the fly and I don’t think there is going to be any major difficulties.”

On what to expect at the scrimmage ...
“I encourage all the fans to come because it is going to be their first look at this year’s team to defend our SEC championship. We are excited about the new beginning and hopefully it will lead to good things this season.”