re: Looking Back '86- LSU becomes lowest seeded team to make Final Four

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The starting five at the beginning of the season:


C Jose Vargas-spilt time with Zoran
PF Nikita Wilson
SF John Williams
OG Don Redden
PG Derrick Taylor


Jerry Reynolds declares for the NBA draft.


Dennis Brown took to few courses and is declared academically ineligible.

6–11 Damon Vance was declared academically ineligible. Damon's nickname out of hs was "Sir Slams a lot" something on those lines. I can look it up.

Just before the season started 7-1 Tito Horford was strong armed out by the NCAA

Zoran Jovanovich gets hurt on the Christmas vacation and is out.

Nikita Wilson declared academically ineligible.


Moving Anthony Wilson to og, Don to sf/PF, John to PF/C and putting a rotation at Center/PF?SF that included Oliver Brown, Bernard Woodside, José Vargas and Ricky Blanton.

In the season LSU is hit with chickenpox outbreak, with star forward John Williams and backup forward Bernard Woodside hospitalized for a week.

This is when Chris Carrier the football player joined the team.

Going into the NCAA tourney is when you get this line up:


LSU Starters:
PG. Derrick Taylor
SG. Anthony Wilson
C. Ricky Blanton
PF. John Williams
SF. Don Redden


We went from sure fire final eight type team to patch and gab team by late Feb.

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Most will say that if this team had been able to keep all of that talent for the season that there is no way they don't not just win it all but run away with it. I don't know something tells that all of the controversy and hardships they went through is what shaped this team and made them so special.

Don Redden and Ricky Blanton could just plain box out. They out-rebounded many a 6'10 player.

Bernard Woodside and Oliver Brown were not scorers but could play defense and shut down many.

I can see Anthony Wilson coming out that pile against Perdue like it happened yesterday.

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I grew up in Memphis

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So what was up with the whole changing the name from Memphis State to just Memphis?

The Board of Regents and University Pres did a study or market research and determined that a city name followed by State had a smaller school connotation. If you look at the other schools with that name, it’s hard to disagree. Memphis started as a small teachers college and I think was a community college after that, so the name fit early in the school’s history. They really outgrew that name by the 60s to 70s.

I think the official change was 92-93, as I was recently reminded that it was still MSU when Hardaway played. A lot of people here were against the name change at the time, but in retrospect, it was the right move.

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It was incredible how Dale Brown coached that team, and was unable to accomplish anywhere close to that level of success with talent-laden teams in the early 90s

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I would say LSU's team in 84-85 was the most talented team Dale ever had as far as quality and depth.


Player Class Pos Height Summary
Nikita Wilson SO F 6-8 15.0 Pts, 6.9 Reb, 0.4 Ast
John Williams F 6-8 13.4 Pts, 6.6 Reb, 3.0 Ast
Jerry Reynolds G 6-8 11.0 Pts, 6.1 Reb, 3.6 Ast
Don Redden JR F 6-6 9.7 Pts, 2.6 Reb, 2.9 Ast
Derrick Taylor JR G 6-0 9.1 Pts, 1.7 Reb, 2.3 Ast
Ricky Blanton FR F 6-7 3.5 Pts, 1.8 Reb, 0.8 Ast
Jose Vargas FR C 6-10 3.2 Pts, 2.0 Reb, 0.1 Ast
Oliver Brown SO F 6-6 2.6 Pts, 2.2 Reb, 1.0 Ast
Dennis Brown G 6-1 2.6 Pts, 1.1 Reb, 1.6 Ast
Zoran Jovanovich C 7-1 2.0 Pts, 2.2 Reb, 0.3 Ast
Anthony Wilson SO G 6-4 1.5 Pts, 0.7 Reb, 0.3 Ast
Neboisha Bukumirovich FR G 6-4
Ocie Conley G 6-3
Damon Vance 6-10

We went 19-10, and 13-5 and won the conference, but IMHO should have done even better and garnered a better tournament seed than we did.

We fizzled at the end losing to Auburn in the first round of the SEC Tourney then lost by 25 to Navy with the Admiral and 5 midgets in the first round of the tourney.

Dale had lost in the first round with a more talented team to Dayton the year before in the tourney and was starting to get heat for underachieving after the 85 season.

That he had the two amazing years the next two with lesser talent reinforces your point.

We never made it past the second round of the tournament the rest of Dale's career after the '87 Elite 8 run. And we had several teams that were more talented than the 86 and 87 bunches.

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86 team that went 7 deep in March makes the final 4. Unreal.

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It's interesting that all of our Final Four teams in 81, 86 and 2006 were all thin depth wise as was the 87 elite 8 team.

None of those teams went deeper than 7 players that would play significant or meaningful minutes in big games.

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We were up 8 over louisville at the half, not 6

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Wrong... It was 44-38 at the half.............

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O mon frere contrere, it was 44-36 good guys at hal

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We were beating Indiana at the half in '81 and Dale kept the team in the locker room so long at half they did not get back in time to warm up.

Would it have made a differenc? Who knows but I do remember it wasn't all smothering Indiana D, we just couldn't hit the broadside of a barn.

Didn't even see this thread when I posted about this team in the other thread. This team was special and probably the best memeories I have of LSU basketball. Sure we had more talented LSU teams but this team went on a run with good to average players and tapped every ounce of hustle and heart I have every seen lead by Dale Brown