COLUMBUS, Ohio – On the eve of the Long Beach State’s men’s basketball NCAA Tournament first round game against Tennessee, LBSU talked with the media and practiced for a half-hour at Nationwide Arena in Columbus.
“We’re not happy just to be here,” Aaron Nixon said. “We want to win games. So the goal is to take it one game at a time and go as far as we can.”
The No. 12-seeded 49ers will meet the No. 5-seeded Tennessee at approximately 11:35 a.m. Friday in Columbus. The game will be shown in The Nugget on campus.
The 49ers’ trio of starting guards, Nixon, Kejuan Johnson and Kevin Houston, fielded questions from the media for about 15 minutes.
A recurring topic of the press conference was Chris Lofton, the Southeastern Conference Player of the year and Tennessee’s starting shooting guard.
“[Lofton] is a great shooter,” Houston said. “He can shoot from anywhere on the court.”
The Tennessee Volunteers are one of the top pressing teams in the country and to prepare for that, LBSU has practiced this week with its starting five against as many as eight defenders.
“They get up on you and lately in practice we have been going over what they do and try to take care of the ball,” Johnson said. “We have to find open shots and look up the court.”
LBSU head coach Larry Reynolds is concerned about the press and although he wasn’t overly impressed by how the team responded to the eight-on-five drill in practice, he is hoping his team will handle it tomorrow.
“I think once our guys get settled in to the game, that hopefully we will be able to make some adjustments and find some ways that we can get the ball in-bounds and get it up the court,” Reynolds said.
Tennessee fans will badly outnumber LBSU fans Friday. But Nixon, who is from Cleveland, which is about two hours north of Columbus, is expecting 60 to 75 people, including one very important person.
“My grandma has not seen me play since I was at Columbus State and she’s coming down,” Nixon said. “That’s a real big deal for me.”
