Jarrell Martin scout article

Must Chant His Name TONIGHT

Home team is the favorite if they show they can be a competitive team this year IMO. Same thing with Gathers. If we show we are going in the right direction and possibly make the tourney, we look really good for these guys.

Well, he just needs to worry about winning and recruiting the instate guys. If he can get Gathers and Martin, that's strong

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Ricardo Gathers said over the weekend that LSU is recruiting him the hardest. Martin now says that LSU is recruiting him the hardest.

Trent Johnson has caught some criticism for an alleged lack of intensity on the recruiting trail. I really think it has to do with Johnson's staff being tight lipped and not letting a lot of recruiting info slip out, unlike a lot of programs who secretly release info to reporters about who they are recruiting, etc.

I think this leads to a lot of incorrect speculation.

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Trent actually told Bryan Lazare a while back that he was more comfortable with 10 guys on scholarship than 13 because of the demands of coaching 13.

That's not a joke.

The problem here isn't that Trent is tight-lipped about recruiting. It's that he doesn't recruit aggressively.

Go to LSU's recruiting list on Rivals, and in a year when LSU has five scholarships to fill they've got 15 players rated 3-stars or higher listing LSU as an option - meaning (generally speaking) somebody from Rivals contacted them and they mentioned LSU as being in the picture for them.

Compare that to Baylor, who has 36 players on their list for four spots, and Xavier, who has 39 for four spots, and you'll see that me do a LOT less work on the recruiting trail.

And this lack of activity has residual effects, because the less prospects you actively work the less coaches, teammates, relatives and so forth you make contact with. And as a result the less buzz you have around your program that would prepare the ground for future recruiting battles.

That's why Trent is in his fourth year coaching LSU's program and with five scholarships available he signed all of one player in the early period, with basically nobody out there right now you can confidently state he's in the lead for.

He's simply not doing the work on the recruiting trail. And when you get outworked in recruiting, you usually get beat up on the court. They're playing Marquette tonight, which is a tiny Catholic school in Milwaukee without a whole lot more basketball tradition than LSU (they have their moments just like we do, but since Al McGuire it's not like they're Duke) and a guy as their coach who came from UNO - and watch how much deeper and more talented they are than we tonight.

BTW, Marquette has three scholarships available (maybe four; I think one of the guys on their roster might be a walkon). Their recruiting list on Rivals has 41 3-star players and higher on it. That's what it takes to recruit at a Top 25 level.

basketball recruiting seems to be all about relationships and it may just be a better strategy to focus on fewer guys to build relationships with rather than casting a large net and offering 40 prospects.

Here you have two of the best players in Louisiana saying, with their own mouths, that LSU is recruiting them the most aggressive.

Yet, we should judge LSU's aggressiveness on the recruiting trail as being weak, because some 3-star in Florida who won't even get an LSU offer doesn't tell warchant.com that LSU is on his list?

Sounds logical.

quote:

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Here you have two of the best players in Louisiana saying, with their own mouths, that LSU is recruiting them the most aggressive.

Yet, we should judge LSU's aggressiveness on the recruiting trail as being weak, because some 3-star in Florida who won't even get an LSU offer doesn't tell warchant.com that LSU is on his list?

Sounds logical.

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It's a general measure of recruiting activity. If you're not even involved enough with major college recruits that they bother to mention you to the recruiting gurus, then clearly you're not hitting the trail very hard.

Compare LSU to other SEC schools, if you'd rather...

ALABAMA: one spot open, 46 players
ARKANSAS: two spots open, 28 players (actually signed three, so somebody on the roster is getting sent packing)
AUBURN: three spots open, 31 players
FLORIDA: three (maybe four) spots open, 52 players
GEORGIA: four spots open, 43 players
KENTUCKY: two (but more like five) spots open, 31 players (signed three)
OLE MISS: two spots open, 25 players
MISSISSIPPI STATE: three (possibly four) spots open, 7 players (but signed five guys in the early period, meaning they'd identified and locked up most of their people before the big recruiting push hit)
SOUTH CAROLINA: one spot open, 25 players
TENNESSEE: two spots open, 41 players
VANDERBILT: six spots open, 25 players

Outside of Mississippi State, who took care of their business in the fall and actually has oversigned, so you can't compare their approach to ours, everybody else in the SEC is casting a much wider net than LSU does.

You can poo-poo the methodology all you want, but it's pretty obvious that LSU's issues on the recruiting trail aren't just that Mike Scarborough didn't get a copy of the recruiting list.

fun night for lsu basketball

I'm not on his bandwagon and have stated many times he should be fired without a minimum of a winning record this season. He definitely is open to criticism, I just disagree with your particularly method,

As far as my following recruiting, I do it for fun and have never claimed or insinuated that I have any inside sources. I am just a fan, consolidating public info and sharing my opinions.

As far as this year, I think they have put a lot of eggs in Gathers' basket and his indecision has them frozen right now. I think they are scared to take any other commits, especially from similar plays for fear of running him off. One thing they can sell is playing time.