Prove It, Trent

Have you taken a peek at the SEC basketball standings this week?

Being that the conference boasts the top two steam engines in the Associated Press football poll who are destined for a head-on collision in Atlanta this weekend, you probably haven't. That's OK, I'll fill you in. While no team has risen above the pack, one SEC team remains undefeated two and a half weeks into the season. Care to guess who it is?

No, it's not the NCAA's all-time winningest program from Lexington. It's not the team from Gainesville that has won back-to-back titles this decade. Heck, it's not even the team from Knoxville that spent part of the 2007-08 season ranked No. 1.

It's the LSU Tigers.

First year coach Trent Johnson has his team undefeated at 6-0 and fans in Baton Rouge building expectations as the decade-long John Brady era is becoming a quickly-shrinking speck in the rear view mirror. While the victories have come over Directional State U and teams from the lowly SWAC and may not seem impressive, it's how these Tigers have won that is catching the attention of round ball regulars on the bayou.

When Johnson was lured away from Stanford --where he led the Cardinal to the Sweet 16 -- by the gumbo and hefty pay raise in south Louisiana, Johnson promised his teams would do two things: play defense and rebound the basketball. Observers may call Johnson intense. They may call the scowl he wears on his face "gruesome". They may even call him soft spoken. One thing they cannot call him is a liar.

Through six games, LSU is holding its opponents to an average of 58 points per game and a comical 33% from the field. The Tigers have been even better on the boards, out rebounding their victims by an average of 16 per game. Compare that to a season ago when teams scored 69 points per game, shot 42% from the field and out rebounded LSU by an average of two boards a game, and you have the reason why John Brady is coaching at Arkansas State and Trent Johnson has LSU undefeated.

Johnson also turned heads in Baton Rouge on basketball media day when he promised to sit guard Marcus Thornton --the second-leading scorer in the SEC a season ago-- until he realized he had to be effective on both ends of the floor and not just on offense. True to his word, Johnson played Thornton only 18 minutes in LSU's opener against Jackson State while Bo Spencer paced LSU with a career high 21 points. Since the opener, Thornton has emerged once again as LSU's leading scorer, but also has 18 defensive rebounds and five steals on the young season. It's safe to say Johnson has the attention of his team.

Tiger fans, on the other hand, may still need some convincing. While there is cautious optimism in Baton Rouge after the solid start to the season, most fans are choosing to focus on the lack of quality opponents instead of the quality product Johnson is putting on the floor. And that is more than fair. Of the six victories, only Cal State Fullerton earned an NCAA Tournament bid last season and they were bounced in the first round as a 14 seed. What's more, Tiger fans saw this play too many times under Brady when the Tigers would feast on in-state stepbrothers, rack up an impressive record, only to fall flat once conference play started.

The difference is that those Brady teams never had an identity. It's clear through only six games how Johnson plans on winning ballgames: score points and work like hell to stop the other team from doing the same. So far, so good.

As for the naysayers, don't worry Trent, you will have ample opportunity to make them believers soon enough. After all, Texas A&M, Washington State and Utah will all come calling soon enough. So, go ahead an prove your team in for real.

And maybe you will have the rest of the conference looking up at you.