More news on LA prospects comes out as three local Baton Rouge kids play in the NBPA Top 100 in Virginia this week... http://theadvocate.com/sports/preps/3090246-123/big-3-prep-basketball-stars Obviously, a bell weather will be Jones' ability to convince a kid like Jarrell Martin to stay in Baton Rouge... in the face of offers from the likes of Louisville, and now UCLA. Also expect Jones to name the replacement assistant coach this coming week, after interviewing 3 or 4 candidates, including reported frontrunner, David Patrick. http://theadvocate.com/sports/lsu/3093497-123/jones-continues-to-stir-enthusiasm LSU Basketball on the move!
Jones has approximately 15 scholarship.offers, including LSU, Florida, Vanderbilt, Stanford and Texas. Martin has approximately 50 scholarship offers, including a recent offer from UCLA. LSU, Louisville, Arizona, Ohio State and Baylor have already offered. Bridgewater: LSU and Arizona are among the major schools that have offered Bridgewater scholarships in football and basketball.“There are so many options for him. Everybody has seen what basketball guys like Jimmy Graham (Saints tight end) and Antonio Gates (Chargers tight end) have done. At the same time, basketball is his passion.”
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/rankings/rank-2752 Rivals updated it's 2013 rankings Jerrell Martin moved up to #13, 5 star status Brian Bridgewater is sitting at #93, 4 star Damien Jones is at #101, 4 star 2 of the 3 would be nice...Lets get em!
This belongs in a 2014 thread but since we don't have one i'll put it here http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-ba...-16/lsu-johnny-jones-trent-johnson-glen-davis It talks about CJJ but has some nice quotes from Victor Craig a Top 20 Forward in the class of 2014 "“He was on me hard over there at Georgetown,” Victor said. “The first time I saw him, I was like, ‘What’s going on, Coach?’ I thought it was some kind of prank. He said, ‘I’m officially a Tiger.’ That was a good move on LSU’s part.”...VC on the Coach Kirby hire.
Info on Baton Rouge and 2013 recruit Damien Jones... http://basketballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1389473 "The Titans' other Jones, 6-foot-9 center Damien Jones, also had a nice outing in front of the cameras and college coaches on Thursday. The athletic shotblocker produced several highlight plays by attacking the basket from the high post, and running the floor hard, to lead to two-handed throw-downs above the rim. Jones, ranked No. 101 in the 2013 Rivals150, has great length for a shotblocker, is quick off of his feet, and has that high running motor that coaches love in a defensive stopper. Vanderbilt head coach Kevin Stallings and Alabama head man Anthony Grant were among those who watched Jones play on Thursday evening."
Damian Jones says Vanderbilt stands out the most on his list of school! Kid is smart, hope Coach JJ can keep him home. I did get to see Jones play with his AAU team about a week ago on ESPNU. As the game was coming on they took a few shots of the coaches watching and yes Coach JJ was in attendance! Few notes on Jones, guy could stand to pick up a few pounds. On the D side Jones looked very solid and will go after every shot that is put up. On the O side did'nt see much of his offensive game. His team did not really look for him much on the Offensive side of the ball. Part of that may have been b/c of his teamate man child J Randle who got the ball often and bulled his way to the basket, often! There was one play where Jones was given the ball about at the three point line he got past his man drove to the basket and had it on his mind that no matter what he was going to dunk! Well J Randle who was on his team did'nt get out of the way fast enuff and got it! Out side of that I did'nt see him mix it up down low a lot on the Offensive side. The few bad things that I saw (and this was from watching 1 game) looked to be things that can be quickly corrected by some good collage coaching. Ill say it again I hope Coach JJ can keep this guy home! http://www.nbebasketball.com/w3/2012-0730/orlando-aau-report-saturday/ " Damian Jones, a 6-foot-9 power forward out of Scotlandville (LA), is one of the best academic students amongst the high-major players in the class of 2013. Jones, who runs with the Texas Titans, said he holds a 4.5 GPA and noted that academics will be part of his college choice, which is evident from his list. He mentioned scholarship offers from Vanderbilt, Florida, North Carolina State, Virginia Tech, Stanford, and LSU to go along with interest from Duke. Of his favorites right now, Jones remarked, “I like Vanderbilt, Duke, LSU, and Florida.” When asked if there are one or two schools above the others, Jones replied, “Vanderbilt kind of stands out the most.” He has yet to take any unofficial visits, but does plan on doing so. He will likely sign late and is planning to possibly commit around the middle of his high school season. Jones wants to major in electrical engineering and said all those schools have that program." http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=2&c=1208355&ssf=1&RequestedURL=http://scouthoops.scout.com/2/1208355.html Kendal Harris one of Coach JJ top pg recruits trimmed his list to 5 schools on thursday (list included LSU) then commited to USC yesterday. I wonder if it will hold, USC was his first offical and maybe being out there in LA was a lot to take in for the young guy. He was guy that I would have liked to have a big pg at 6'4 but not make or break by any means. and It looks like UCLA is going hard after Jerrall Martin http://gojoebruin.com/2012/07/17/ucla-basketball-recruiting-can-ucla-land-jarrell-martin/ Third time I hope Coach JJ can keep him home!
Dwight Coleby 6'9 PF out of Miss claims an offer from LSU...Looks like he's long and athletic http://fansided150.com/2012/08/08/basketball-recruiting-dwight-coleby-picks-up-two-sec-offers/ http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/player-Dwight-Coleby-135056 Another name thats popped up on the LSU radar Tim Quarteman... Scout has him listed as him listed as a SF but ESPN has him listed as a PG http://louisianastate.scout.com/a.z?s=107&p=8&c=1&nid=6256894 http://espn.go.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/162855/tim-quarterman Quarteman recently moved into the top 100 for Scout and ESPN(who both updated their top 100 this week)...It seems like Coach JJ is trying to grab a tall PG, recruiting Kendall Harris(6'4) pretty hard Tom Quarteman (6'5), I've even seen current LSU freshman listed Corban Collins listed between 6'2-6'4...I thought Coach JJ was big on the small PG, He had alot of success with Josh White (while at NT) and from my understanding was recruiting Anthony Hickey pretty hard but I guess bigger conference bigger PG, we will see. As stated earlier ESPN and Scout released its final top for the summer. Jerrell Martin ends the summer ranked 12 by ESPN and 11 by Scout. Damien Jones ends his summer ranked 72 by ESPN and 100 by Scout. http://espn.go.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/playerrankings/_/order/true http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=9&c=4&cfg=bb&pid=88&yr=2013
I am so looking forward to LSU signing a highly ranked player to give this program some creditablity. This is beginning to be ridiculous. Every day I look on here hoping to see some good news but mostly its (excellent posts guys) hopeful speculations. Now we are having problems gettin the junior college players into school. I don't care if he was another schools reject & a accused drug user/dealer we needed him. Gosh, read that, we have really fallen off the map. Hopefully better days are ahead.
I really think Jones will turn it around. LSU is a big drawing card for recruits in other areas besides basketball. we don't have a legendary program with that kind of appeal, but don't forget...it doesn't take long to turn around a program because you only need a few great recruits to turn it around. I hear Jones works real hard at recruiting and right now, he's laying the groundwork for good classes several years from now.
