(Editor's note: LSU junior Temeka Johnson, an honorable mention All-American in 2001-02, will share a weekly diary with ESPN.com throughout the season.)

Nov. 10, 2002

	Johnson

It's been a long week waiting for our exhibition game to arrive. Last week, I found some relaxation by going over to Kisha's (James) apartment to play some cards. Patty (Hanten) and Seimone (Augustus) also played, as well as Aimee Welch, a former Lady Tiger manager. The card game itself was enjoyable, but the evening really got entertaining when Seimone started trying on some new clothes she had just bought. She would walk out like a model and say, "Girl, I'm so pretty!" We were all cracking up.

On Saturday, we spent a lot of time at the mall, but we weren't shopping. We autographed posters for three hours at the Mall of Louisiana and there was never a break. It seemed like an assembly line with fans coming by to see us. We also sold some season tickets. All in all it was a lot of fun. We enjoyed meeting so many people and many of them had seen us play or said that they would be out this year.

On Tuesday, I got a surprise when my mom and my nephew dropped in unexpectedly at the apartment. It was great to see them and it helped break up my normal routine during the week.

	Temeka Johnson and LSU needed only seven players to upset Tennessee in the SEC tourney last season.

Poll pondering
Practices have been pretty intense. You can tell that the coaches and my teammates can sense that the season is right around the corner. There has been so much positive publicity already. We are ranked No. 3 in the AP poll, which is done by all the media writers around the nation. We are ranked No. 4 in the ESPN/USA Today poll, which is voted on by the coaches. You can tell things are different. There is a lot more media at our practices. It seems like every time I turn around I'm doing an interview, and I know it's the same with some of the others on the team.

One thing that hasn't changed? Coach (Sue) Gunter! Every day she talks about what we need to do to get better. She talks to us in terms of where we are ranked in March and April and not to get all caught up with where we are now. And she is always talking about Arizona. For those of you who don't know, we open the season at Arizona and the Wildcats have a good team. Coach Gunter never lets you look past the next game and she says the only game of any importance to us right now is Arizona. When we drop off a little in practice, you can bet she'll soon say, "I wonder how hard Arizona is practicing today."

Exhibition excellence
At long last, Friday came and it was time to play someone other than ourselves. Our opponent was the Czech Republic team. But things were different -- really different. First, there is construction going on to develop our locker room area. We are going to have a video room, a player lounge and a new locker room, so we have to weave through the construction to get to the floor (though none of us are complaining!). Then it was certainly different to go through pregame warm-ups with 12 players instead of eight. In fact, it was strange to look over at the bench and see players in uniforms sitting in the chairs. Heck, it was a little strange when I got to come out and get a rest (smile).

No question we have a lot of work to do, but it sure was fun running up and down the floor against someone else. We scored 113 points so I know we did some things well. We pressed a lot in the first half and coach Gunter complimented us on our execution because we haven't been running our presses very well in practice. We also worked for and took good shots. That's always important to the coaches -- and they remind us of that often.

Another good stat was that we shot 35 free throws. One thing we have learned over the past two years is that getting to the free-throw line helps us to win games. The bad stuff? We had 12 turnovers in the first half and we let the Czech team shoot better than 50 percent for the game. But as coach Gunter told us after the game, we weren't supposed to be in midseason form for our first exhibition game.

The best part of the game is that we now know some of the areas we need to improve in. We are taking Saturday off and then back to work on Sunday. We'll have to work hard on Sunday because coach Gunter will be sure to remind us that Arizona will also be working hard!

Temeka