A little early but..Next year's basketball team?

am i forgetting an international recruit dale got that was very good? roman rubchenko is the best i can remember. oh, geert gave us one very good year.

zoran ________?
nebosha bukarumavic (sp?)?
danny ______--the little israeli

i think their impact is neglible. stick to the south and shoot for a couple highprofile national recruits.

 

Speaking of Miss St. the NCAA continues to battle with Miss St and the Sidneys, who are refusing to provide certain tax information to the NCAA. So, Miss St. is still likely to be without their "star" recruit, Renardo Sidney. Could this recruit be more of a distraction than help?

Andy Katz's Daily Word: Renardo Sidney family attorney plays hardball with NCAA - ESPN

For those that say, go after those top 10 recruits, let's not forget that there are a lot of headaches that go along with those guys these days...

 

Basketball recruiting has sort of the same issues as baseball in that you recruit the best only to have them leave after a year and you start all over again. I think finding the 3-4 star player who is also a good student is where the future lies in college basketball now. Plus an emphasis on facilties at LSU has become a great recruiting tool with the student-athlete facilities and the new practice gym. You can also recruit regionally and field a hell of a team as the Final 4 team of 06 and last years team showed. The success of international players of the past were marginal at best.

That said I do believe the 09-10 team will surprise some people. Coach Johnson has been pretty remarkable so far and I don't see anything that will keep him from improving. The presence of Taz by himself will add 4-5 wins in some close games plus he is back to his natural position. I'm pretty much a basketball fan before baseball so I'd like to see the fan base get behind this program the way we did in the 80's and like we did for baseball in the 90's.

 

As we get ever closer to the tip off of hoops in mid-October, here is what Rivals has to say about LSU.

First they rank LSU #65 in their top 347...

65. LSU
CONFERENCE: SEC
BEST PLAYER: F Tasmin Mitchell
QUICK TAKE: The Tigers were surprisingly good last season, but they will fall back into the SEC pack this season.
BUZZ: LSU has one of the SEC's top coaches in Trent Johnson and one of the league's best players in Mitchell, but the Tigers have too many question marks elsewhere to have a realistic shot at winning the conference. Johnson clearly has this program headed in the right direction, but the Tigers likely will take a small step backward this season before taking a couple of giant steps forward in future years. A return to the NCAA tournament would represent a major accomplishment.

Second, they have this SEC power rankings report...

SEC preseason power rankings - College Basketball - Rivals.com

I personally think that he's underselling 'Bama and overselling Ole Miss, but everyone has an opinion... :hihi:

Now, discuss.... opcorn:

 

You've got to consider though the quality of international players has improved CONSIDERABLY since the Dale Brown era. I don't think their impact is neglible when you consider Patrick Mills (St Mary's PG, drafted), Olgivy (Vanderbilt, will be drafted), Bogut (Utah, drafted), the list goes on. The key is finding the kids that want to go to college. :shock: But, if you can lock down the south and pick off some of the best kids nationally, I'm happy :lol:

More on the state of LSU's team... not so good according to Trent via Tigerbait. :cry:

http://lsu.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=996593

It's going to be interesting this season... opcorn:

 

Well, we're no longer "early" and with this off weekend, the men's basketball team will start it's official practices this weekend. Trent spoke to the media yesterday and the theme seemed to be injuries, player development and each of them doing the right things the right way to succeed.

2theadvocate.com | Sports | Laney: Johnson, LSU building for future — Baton Rouge, LA
2theadvocate.com | Sports | Injuries issue for Tigers — Baton Rouge, LA
Johnson Previews Season at Media Day - LSUsports.net - The Official Web Site of LSU Tigers Athletics

As I mentioned before, this is going to be a very interesting season... alot of questions to answer, but I'd love to see some of these kids step up and develop.

 

With Mitchell and Spencer we have a good starting point it just depends on how the rest of the team comes around.
Interested to see how Green comes along from his back surgery. Johnson seems to like him.

 

Likewise, I think Green is pretty key, not only b/c the kid's got size, but because Trent was saying some pretty nice things about him prior to his surgery, you've got to think that the kid was going to show some improvement. Similarly, I'm going to be watching Storm Warren and Chris Bass. Storm's a kid that was a top 120 ish recruit, who has some talent--but Trent is going to have teach the kid to round out his game into something more than a hardworking, undersized post. The staff has been working on Storm's outside/mid-range jumpshot and his perimeter skills, so there's another interesting player development to watch.

I also think that Chris Bass is going to quietly surprise. He's supposedly bigger and stronger now, and with his athletic ability, he has the capability to surprise.

 

he always seems like he's trying to make up for a lack of athleticism with effort. he seems stiff and pressed (sounds like dry cleaning) not fluid. maybe thatll change as he becomes more comfortable.

 

Hmmm. That's interesting b/c I wouldn't have described Chris that way. I actually think he's a fairly athletic PG, i.e., at 6'1" and 180-185, he's quick and pretty strong for a kid that size. What I think he was lacking was pure basketball skill. That is, I think he can work on better setting up teammates, he could shoot it better, and he probably could dribble-drive a little better. As a defender and a guy that can break pressure and set up an offense though (if you look at his assist to turnover ratio last year, it's actually very good), he's decent. I think if Trent has had Chris work on being more aggressive but smarter off penetration and his shot, he'll definitely surprise some folks. I think the harder thing to teach is shooting, but from the sounds of it, Chris is stronger so he should be able to get in the lane more and create more "disruption" for the defense--the key then will be whether he is better at finding people. Again, I'll be watching him closely, b/c there's a good chance that if Farrer doesn't bring his A game, and Dotson isn't quite ready, there's a chance that we'd do Bo and Chris on the court at the same time.