And The Valley Shook

Losing Ricardo Gathers

2012-02-09T17:00:34Z

Only a few days after committing to the Baylor Bears basketball team, it seems like LSU's future is as bleak as ever. The reports seem to indicate that he had interest in LSU, but that interest wasn't mutual, or mutual enough for his liking. In a clearly football oriented state that produces many great athletes for the gridiron, Louisiana is on the other end of the spectrum for basketball.

Every couple of years, historically, it seems like there is a can't miss recruit. Recently, however, LSU has been missing them. It started perhaps in 2007 with LaceDarius Dunn going to Baylor as the best recruit from Louisiana. 2008 had Greg Monroe head up to Washington DC to play for Georgetown. The next few years, LSU was able to get the top talent, but it wasn't enough. Matt Derenbecker went to Dayton after his freshman year, while Eddie Ludwig and John Isaac have been role players for their careers.

The correlation seems to be that in the years LSU is at their worst, their talent from Louisiana also happens to be the worst. I think it's a fair opinion to have, but I don't think that tells the whole story. In other words, I don't think it's quite that simple.

While Trent Johnson has not done a good job at keeping the talent from Louisiana here, a simple glance at the starting line up tells a much happier tale.

Anthony Hickey- Hopkinsville, Kentucky
Andre Stringer- Jackson, Mississippi
Ralston Turner- Muscle Shoals, Alabama
Johnny O'Bryant- Cleveland, Mississippi
Justin Hamilton- Alpine, Utah/Iowa State

Every single player is from a state other than Louisiana. Now, looking back at recruiting numbers, they have been accurate. Louisiana, high level talent is somewhat few and far between. So doesn't it make sense that a coach for LSU should be looking elsewhere for talent, and not relying on a state that generally doesn't produce much basketball talent?

A good strategy might be to find players from other areas, and supplement his roster with the good but not great Louisiana talent.

Going to the present with Gathers, personally, I think the explanation for why he isn't in purple and gold is quite simple, really. Looking at the line up, it's unlikely that he's going to be given(and yes I mean given) a spot on the starting line up. It's more likely that JOB and Hamilton are both in better shape and further along in their careers. They will likely keep their spots for next year.

If anything, a decision to go to Baylor is probably a good move for a player like him, who's interested in college for a year and the NBA after that. Baylor, and coach Scott Drew, have done a good job developing forwards, and Perry Jones and Quincy Miller are likely lottery picks this year if/when they leave. Assuming that is what Gathers is interested in, Baylor is a good school to do that at.

You may be asking, why am I assuming that he wants to go pro ASAP. According to this Kentucky Sports Radio update, Gathers was waiting for an offer to go to Kentucky. Simply put, a player going to Kentucky is usually a sign that they intend to go pro early in their college career.

Knowing all that, it probably wouldn't work out well at LSU for Gathers. It's unlikely that he could come in off the bench and have the impact he needs to go straight to the NBA. Baylor, with their 3 open spots for a forward, will likely give him that place to showcase his talent.

This isn't meant just to defend Johnson, he's still got work to do with only 9 scholarship players for next year including 2012's only recruit Malik Morgan. It looks like LSU will have to be patient for now and see who else rounds out the 2012 class since I doubt it will stay at only a single player.

Dworaczyk granted 6th year of eligibility

2012-02-09T12:17:26Z

Dworaczyk granted 6th year of eligibility

"'I’m excited to be able to get another year so that I can finish my career on the field,' Dworaczyk said in a statement released by LSU. 'I felt like I had some unfinished business, so being able to get this additional year is a blessing."

Awesome.

Nerds from Nashville Win 76-61

2012-02-09T04:16:05Z

For the fifth time this season, the LSU Tigers fall on the road, this time to the Vanderbilt Commodores. For the second straight road game, however, in a loss I was pleased with the Tigers efforts. Despite the fact that it was a 15 point final, it was much closer for most of the game. The Tigers went into the locker room with a tie at halftime, and for much of the second half it was only a 2 score deficit.

John Jenkins and Jeffrey Taylor, as mentioned in the gamethread, made the difference. It's not a surprise to anyone that the best players on the Vanderbilt team made the plays they needed to down the stretch. In a somewhat shocking occurrence, Jenkins actually missed 2 free throws, the same amount as he missed in the previous eight SEC games. However, it was only a minor victory as he buried two dagger three pointers with time winding down in the second half.

Festus Ezeli was probably the MVP for the game, as he was unstoppable in the second half for a long stretch. Whether he was getting fouled or getting a dunk, all Vanderbilt had to do was throw it his way and they were coming away with points or a chance for points. If not for his poor free throw shooting, it might have been a much worse game.

The story for LSU was both a few breakdowns on defense during key stretches, as well as extremely poor 3 point shooting. The Tigers finished with a dismal 3-21 night from 3. Hickey and Stringer combined to go 2-16 from 3 themselves, while Hickey was the only player to make those shots. There were also defensive lapses by both the guards and the forwards as both Taylor and Jenkins hit back to back 3's each at different time to add cushion to the Vanderbilt leads.

All is not lost for the Tigers. Alabama is still coming to Baton Rouge on Saturday, and I don't think I need to point out the importance of that game. Whether it helps us get to the NCAA's, NIT, or simply to eliminate bad memories, it's an absolutely key game.

LSU Tigers vs. Vanderbilt Commodores Gamethread

2012-02-08T21:41:26Z

Now halfway through the SEC regular season, the LSU Tigers sit in a tie for 8th place with the Tennessee Volunteers at 3-5. So far, the road has been very unkind to the Tigers in SEC play, as they are yet to win a game. Despite the fact that Vanderbilt has been relatively disappointing this season, it still seems unlikely that LSU will be able to win in Nashville.

The Tigers did pick up a much needed win over SEC West rival Arkansas on Saturday, but with the news that Ricardo Gathers decided to take his talents to Waco, SEC fans will need another win to keep calm. Vanderbilt comes into tonight's 8:00 CT tip off with a stable 16-7 (5-3) record, but with the high off-season expectations, the 'Dores have underachieved so far.

At the beginning of the year, the story/reason/excuse was that Vanderbilt was missing center Festus Ezeli, a starter from last year and an anchor down low. With the ambitious schedule, losses were bound to happen, especially with so many good teams on the schedule.

The early season was a mix of good, bad, wtf?, and meh... losses. Cleveland State, while a decent team themselves, shouldn't have been able to pick up a win on Vanderbilt's home court. Louisville and Xavier were both overtime losses, and hot teams at the time of those games, but you would have expected a senior-laden Vanderbilt team to win at least one of the games. Indiana State is similar to Cleveland State, an OK team, but not a team you expect to see beat the 'Dores.

SEC for the Commodores started off great, though we now see that Auburn, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee aren't all that impressive. A win over Alabama is, especially with the way they completely dominated the Tide on their homecourt, but since then they've lost 3 of 4 SEC games.

I think most Vanderbilt fans would agree that while they expect to win against LSU, they would much rather have a rematch with any of the bottom teams tonight. Coming off two road losses, and awaiting a game with Kentucky for gameday on Saturday, this could end up being a classic trap game. Of course, I have to caution our own team that they can't be looking ahead to Alabama and giving up this game.

Vanderbilt is led by a bunch of seniors, but it is John Jenkins that will get most of the attention and admiration with his fantastic season so far. He's a threat for both 1st team all-SEC and perhaps a spot on an All-American team. Currently he's averaging nearly 20 points a game while shooting it at over 43%. Even if you didn't know who he was, it wouldn't take long watching a game of his to pick him out with his smooth shooting stroke and range.

There's plenty more firepower on the court for Vanderbilt, however. Jeffrey Taylor is also having a fantastic year, averaging 17 points a game and doing so with even better shooting numbers. As a 34% 3 point shooter from a year ago, he's made a big jump to 47% for this year(and already has more made 3's than last year with 26 less attempts so far).

Down low, the previously mentioned Ezeli has been solid and is one of the better offensive centers in the country. Lance Goulbourne is a prototypical power forward, great at rebounding and scoring down low, but is having a little bit of trouble over the past 2 games.

What to look for: It looks like with the conclusion of the Arkansas and Florida games that LSU will mostly be done going against teams that like to press. It's somewhat unfortunate, because LSU looked like they finally managed to attack a pressure defense. Hickey's foul trouble kept them from exploiting it all game, but when he was on the court LSU matched the uptempo style of the Hogs.

Vanderbilt isn't known for being a great defensive team. Their offense is definitely their strength, and they use that to get opponents into trouble by forcing quick, bad shots once an opponent falls behind. When a team can match them on offense, they are a lot less likely to win.

For LSU, they can't stray from their gameplan of playing tough defense. Don't allow Vanderbilt second chances, since they are good enough to "get theirs" without any extra chances. As always, LSU will need to hope that Vanderbilt's shooters only go par or worse, since if they are on it could get out of hand early.

Vegas thought Vanderbilt should be 9 point favorites, but the public thought they should be 11 point favorites. Somewhere around there seems really fair. LSU has shown they can compete on the road, despite being big underdogs. O/U is 133, pretty nondescript.

Despite the fact that I really want LSU to win this game, I hate the match up. Vanderbilt is a similar but more talented version of Northwestern, who had no trouble putting up 88 points on us earlier in the year. With a better set of forwards and equally capable shooters, LSU will probably be playing catch up a lot of the night. Unfortunately, I see the Commodores taking tonight's game with a margin bigger than the spread.

Tip off is set for 8:00 CT. Here's the TV information.

The game will be televised live on CSS and Cox 4 in the Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Lafayette area and on tape delay on Cox Sports TV after the New Orleans Hornets game.

The game will also be on Watch ESPN, and it doesn't look to be blacked out.

GEAUX
TIGERS

(all times Central) MARCH 11 (Sun.) NOTRE DAME 3 p.m. Cox Sports Television 16 (Fri.) MISSISSIPPI...

2012-02-08T20:16:40Z

(all times Central)

MARCH

11 (Sun.) NOTRE DAME 3 p.m. Cox Sports Television
16 (Fri.) MISSISSIPPI STATE 7 p.m. Cox Sports Television
17 (Sat.) MISSISSIPPI STATE 6 p.m. Comcast Sports Southeast
30 (Fri.) ARKANSAS 7 p.m. Comcast Sports Southeast
31 (Sat.) ARKANSAS 7 p.m. ESPNU

APRIL

1 (Sun.) ARKANSAS 1 p.m. Cox Sports Television
5 (Thu.) at Florida 6:30 p.m. ESPNU
14 (Sat.) ALABAMA 6:30 p.m. Cox Sports Television
15 (Sun.) ALABAMA 12 p.m. ESPN2
25 (Wed.) SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA 6:30 p.m. Cox Sports Television
27 (Fri.) GEORGIA 7 p.m. Cox Sports Television
28 (Sat.) GEORGIA 6:30 p.m. Comcast Sports Southeast
29 (Sun.) GEORGIA 1 p.m. ESPN2

MAY

1 (Tue.) TULANE 6:30 p.m. Cox Sports Television
5 (Sat.) at Ole Miss 2 p.m. SportSouth
11 (Fri.) VANDERBILT 7 p.m. Cox Sports Television
12 (Sat.) VANDERBILT 7 p.m. SportSouth
13 (Sun.) VANDERBILT 1 p.m. SportSouth

Eighteen LSU Baseball Games Selected for Television - SportsNola.com

So, here's the problem. Because of the Hornets TV contract (which stipulates that all Hornets games, home or away, will be carried live on Cox Sports) the amount of LSU games on TV this year has increased over last year by 1, but some key dates are missing. No games in February will be televised, including the season opener v Air Force and a road game at Tulane. The SEC opener against Miss St. gets carriage, but the Sat game in the series is pushed off of Cox because of a Hornets game. In addition, the Bama series opener, the Pontiff Classic, and a popular mid-week v. USL are all missing and all conflict with the Hornets.

The missing games, and anything listed as being on Comcast Sports, may all be picked up on Cox 4, but that's not exactly ideal. If you've followed along during basketball season you've already seen the wonders this station creates (70's quality SD picture, games getting cut off for Lotto drawings). Still, it's better than games not being on TV.

For those interested, LSU is again selling HD Video Geaux Zone packages for the season (which now works on iPads as well) which will have every home game not on TV and even some that are for $40 for the entire season.

OL Josh Boutte Commits

2012-02-08T18:25:13Z

Boutte is a 6'5, 305-pound OL commit from New Iberia, LA. His highlight tape is rather comical, if for no other reason, he towers over his own teammates. It appears as if he's not fully getting into his stance, but he's just that large compared to them. Also, I'm unsure of whether or not he's related to former LSU DT Marc Boutte.

Shortly after committing, Barton Simmons tweeted:

Josh Boutte commits to LSU. I was just watching his film today. Really impressed. He'll be highly rated when we updated our rankings this wk.

That's a nice piece of praise from a national recruiting analyst.

There's typically two types of OL who excel at the next two levels: mean, nasty maulers and pure technicians. Obviously, some combo of both is what makes the elite guys like Jake Long, etc.

The first thing that sticks out to me on Boutte's tape is that he is one bad sumbitch and he wants you to know it. I LOVE OL who continue their blocks until their guy is on the ground. To me, that shows the tenacity and toughness required to be a superb linemen. I watch the tape of Vadal Alexander in awe, because he enjoys punishing his targets. In Boutte, I see the same. At 6'5, 305, he's got a nice frame without all the excess chubbiness. Obviously, almost every OL's body needs to be re-worked when they get to the next level, but Boutte seems to have a nice, naturally thick build without being tubby.

Beyond Boutte's aggressiveness, the way he fires out of his stance stands out to me. As a former (and terrible) OL, one thing our coach constantly reiterated was exploding out of your stance. Our center in HS was about 160 pounds, but I saw him absolutely melt guys weighing 270-280 pounds because he was not only tough, he fired out of his stance and got leverage. Those are two of the most important aspects in line play.

From the tape, Boutte will still need to work on coming out of his stance too high (a common problem for taller linemen), but that's a technical issue the coaches can work through.

The other noticeable point is that he really moves well. He pulls a good deal, and he looks really natural getting out in front of the play, locating his target and engaging them. Boutte moves well, and he doesn't labor.

Overall, I'm really impressed. Boutte is probably the top lineman in the state, and while he may not be quite to the level of a prospect of La'El Collins stature, he's only a step behind IMO. He likely projects to guard, but I could see him playing at RT, or even C in a pinch.

Here's a good, free read on Boutte and his commitment.

Link Gumbo 2/8/12

2012-02-08T15:00:17Z

Coaches Miles and Cooper traveled with Mo Claiborne to Oklahoma last night to accept the Thorpe award. The award was presented by last year's winner, Patrick Peterson. LSU joins Texas as the only schools with back-to-back Thorpe winners and no school has won 3 in a row...yet. The Oklahoman took a few minutes to catch up with Coach Miles, who hadn't been back to the state in some time.

Four former Tigers won some new hardware at the Super Bowl last weekend: Corey Webster, Michael Clayton, Chad Jones, and Ryan Perrilloux. Perrilloux had been cut once again late last week, but was part of the team in the championship celebration this week. Chad Jones is the only player in the history of sport to have a BCS, CWS, and Super Bowl championship to his name.

When LSU missed out on Ricardo Gathers, the best talent in LA's 2012 basketball class, we were disappointed, but it was kind of expected. Given what's happened to LSU the last few seasons, it's a hard sell to even the home state's best players. However, Gathers' comments to The Advocate are extremely frustrating to hear. Gathers specifically re-opened his recruitment to give LSU a second chance, but afterward he felt LSU wasted his time

"I just felt like coach (Trent) Johnson didn't put forth a great enough effort to get me," Gathers said. "He kind of sent most of the assistant coaches on me like Brent Scott. I had to realize I wasn't going to be playing for Brent Scott; I was going to be playing for coach Johnson. The simple fact I had only seen coach Johnson at one of my games, and that was the Scotlandville game this year. That doesn't even really count because that was in Baton Rouge. Other than that, I haven't seen him."

I'm stunned. The idea that Gathers, the state's best talent, specifically decommited from a Big East program to give LSU a chance and Coach Johnson did not give enough effort with a second chance is inexcusable.

Our Vandy Bros at Anchor of Gold preview tonight's matchup by saying we don't suck this year. High praise indeed.

Ponamsky at BBI sat down with Coach Miles to review the incoming class.

Baseball scrimmages continue and the pitching staff is looking very good this year. 9 days until first pitch.

Softball is starting up very soon as well (LSU opens against Penn St. this Friday night) and the SEC Network has a nice preview of our new coach Beth Torina.

Lou Tepper has resurfaced as the new DC at Buffalo...University

Ole Miss, having replaced their FB coach is also in the process of replacing their soon-to-be-retired AD. The leading candidate appears to be Sean Tuohy. Yes, that guy from The Blind Side who was played by Tim McGraw.

The Big East is set to invite Memphis to join it's ranks this afternoon. Some of those who care about Big East football are...less than pleased.

All of a sudden the B1G wants a playoff too. If it'll keep Delaney distracted from trying to mess with baseball, I'm all for it.

Jr Player Goes by School Camp # Pos BAKER, RYAN LOUISIANA ST LB02 OB * BROCKERS, MICHAEL ...

2012-02-07T16:17:06Z

Jr Player Goes by School Camp # Pos
BAKER, RYAN LOUISIANA ST LB02 OB
* BROCKERS, MICHAEL LOUISIANA ST DL06 DT
BROOKS, ROND'TRIQUE RON LOUISIANA ST DB08 DC
* CLAIBORNE, MORRIS LOUISIANA ST DB11 DC
JEFFERSON, JORDAN LOUISIANA ST QB09 QB
PETERSON, DEANGELO LOUISIANA ST TE11 TE
* RANDLE, RUEBEN LOUISIANA ST WO38 WO
TAYLOR, BRANDON LOUISIANA ST DB54 SS

The official 2012 Scouting Combine List - CBSSports

And now for the debate we thought we were done with, but will now be brought back kicking and screaming. Notice that there's only 1 QB on that list.

And The Valley Shook

Losing Ricardo Gathers

Dworaczyk granted 6th year of eligibility

Dworaczyk granted 6th year of eligibility

Nerds from Nashville Win 76-61

LSU Tigers vs. Vanderbilt Commodores Gamethread

GEAUXTIGERS

(all times Central) MARCH 11 (Sun.) NOTRE DAME 3 p.m. Cox Sports Television 16 (Fri.) MISSISSIPPI...

OL Josh Boutte Commits

Link Gumbo 2/8/12

Jr Player Goes by School Camp # Pos BAKER, RYAN LOUISIANA ST LB02 OB * BROCKERS, MICHAEL ...

GEAUX
TIGERS