(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. 19, 2002

	Johnson

In case you missed it, we finished our exhibition season with a 90-45 win over the Houston Jaguars last week. We played OK but we know we still have room for improvement. We had four players in double-figures and 11 players scored. The best part of the stat sheet was that we had 28 assists and only 11 turnovers. The coaches are always talking to us about assist-to-turnover ratio. We even chart assists and turnovers in every practice. The 28 assists also show that we are an unselfish team -- I like that. Nine players had at least one assist.

This weekend had both good and bad events. On Saturday, some of us attended the funeral of teammate Treynell Clavelle's father, who passed away from cancer. It has been a difficult period for her and her family. Her father was such a special man who was a great fan of LSU. He was so proud when Treynell signed to play with us. Please keep her and her family in your prayers.

War games
Now let me back on track to the "war" that occurred on Friday night. Kisha (James) has a game called Cranium and it is awesome. It is the combination of games including true/false questions, trivia, charades, pictionary, and making clay figures! The "war" means it's the perimeter players vs. the post players -- and I am sorry to report that the post players edged us out this time. Aiysha (Smith) is really good at the game. She gives great clues and can guess everything -- even awful clues.

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

A lot of people don't understand just how much Seimone (Augustus) really loves basketball. Well, here is an example. One of the parts of the game is you have to take a card with word on it and make a clay figure and then her team has to guess what it is. She got a card that said "Pinocchio." But she thought it was (former ODU great and WNBA All-Star) Ticha "Penicheiro." We didn't win that round!

Saturday also found some of the Lady Tigers signing autographs before the football game. We rolled out one of our goals for kids (and grownups) to shoot at, and signed autographs and passed out T-shirts. We do this a couple of times each year and it is always a big hit because of all the people who are on campus for the football game. This past Saturday it was kind of funny because the temperature was around 50 degrees and we were freezing. I'm not sure where those that read this are from, but for a team that plays indoors down south, 50 degrees is cold. We had our jackets and hats on but managed to hold on for the two hours!

Sunday we had an open practice for our Fast Break Club that was followed by our Tip-Off Party. The Fast Break Club is our booster group which is full of wonderful people. They practically adopt us. They come to all the games and we have a lot of functions that we both attend so we can get to know each of them better. It's amazing how much they know about us and it makes us feel special to be Lady Tigers.

Aiming at Arizona
Sunday's practice also marked our first workout in preparation for Arizona. We open up next Friday night in Tucson. Coach (Sue) Gunter's intensity reached a new level at practice. She is so competitive. Opening up at Arizona is a huge challenge for us. They are a good team from a good conference. We are already watching video clips of them and you can see how good they are. They have good quickness on the perimeter and a good inside game. They also have a 6-foot-5 freshman that we haven't seen that has played great in their two exhibition wins. Her last name is Polk and she had a double-double in the first half of Arizona's last exhibition game!

The first game always brings about excitement. The fact that we are on the road against a good team makes it that much more exciting. You can tell from the coaches and from the players that practice is much more competitive. It is time for us to take our game to another level this week in practice in order to be able to compete with Arizona.

Temeka