re: LSU Basketball 2013 Class up to #3 (247)

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During the Trent Johnson time at LSU there was a lot of talk about him not recruiting Louisiana players. It was said that if we would throw a wall around the state like football had done that we could have great teams with the best players from Louisiana.

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The problem with TJ is he let guys he should have gotten and did offer, get away. Cases in point:

Markel Brown
Langston Galloway
Javan Felix
Ricardo Gathers

He did a poor job in the state. He was a complete failure in the state recruiting. The guys he got from LA are as follows - Eddie Ludwig, Matt Derenbecker, John Isaac and Malik Morgan. 2 guys who transferred out of the program, 1 guy who has been a marginal contributor at best and the last guy is just a freshman so he's TBA later on.

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My question is this. Everyone agrees that CJJ's first real recruiting class is great. There is only one player from Louisiana on this list. So is CJJ a failure too because he isn't recruiting in state? What equivalent Louisiana players has he let get away?

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There is only 1 player worth getting from LA this year in Jarrell Martin, while some will say Damian Jones...Johnny Jones did not offer him. Instead choosing to go after Odo for the immediate imact at C and then signing what he sees as a player better suited for his system in Malone down the line. Bridgewater MAY be a late addition only because Johnny Jones loses JOB III. I think that's the only reason we go after Bridgewater. There isn't a ton of upside with Bridgewater being that he's only 6'5-6'6, but at least he's got a good build and is athletic.

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Oh and I know Trent's problem was that he didn't hardly recruit anyone from anywhere. So the only point of this is to point out how stupid those people were who said we should mainly recruit from Louisiana. My comment at the time was that I had never met a coach who would turn down a good player just because of where he lived.

Kentucky supposedly has the number one recruits again. Only one of them is from Kentucky. Are the folks in Kentucky angry that he is ignoring the home town boys?

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Nobody was saying locking down 3-4 LA players every class would bring us up to the top. People were just angry, as I first stated in my post, that Trent Johnson was routinely letting good players go like Gathers, Felix, Brown and Galloway. Maybe Damian Jones turns out to be a good player at Vanderbilt, difference there is Johnny Jones has 2 other top 75 recruits outside of the to LA kid he secured. Trent Johnson never came close to that. He sometimes had 1 guy to get excited about then after that.

You can't justify anything using Kentucky as your example. Kentucky recruits nationwide. LSU is trying to build a program so its imperative that we dominate Louisiana and pick up what ever we can from outside the state.