re: Why doesn't Louisiana produce great basketball players or coaches?

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Players born in Louisiana
Bill Russell
Karl Malone
Elvin Hayes
Clyde Drexler
Willis Reed
Bob Petit
Joe Dumars
Orlando Woolridge
De’Aron Fox
Antwan Jamison
Danny Granger
Rashard Lewis
Robert Parish
Paul Millsap
Greg Monroe
Reggie Lewis

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And only one of those played at LSU

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Why doesn't Louisiana produce great basketball players or coaches?

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Because LSU (and most other Louisiana schools) haven't made basketball a priority. It's moronic. They leave millions and millions of dollars, university branding, etc on the table because they're inept. They've never known what they were doing with it and they've treated it as some castoff sport.

The only thing that has me somewhat hopeful for the future is that LSU was totally embarrassed on the national stage as a dead program, as 14 other SEC schools made the NCAA tourney. That is inexcusable.

As the majority of the country was wrapped up in this sweet 16, elite 8 and finally a final four that half the field was comprised of SEC schools... it looks like it may be too big to ignore at this point.

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He was the #1 ranked HS player in the state of La his senior year. Will Wade came close to offering him but stopped short. Then he went to ULL and immediately made an impact. That's when LSU should have grabbed him. Instead better programs like TT and Houston did

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Since leaving ULL, he's averaged 4.2 points per game, 1.3 assists, 3 rebounds, while shooting 43.8% FG / 26% from 3 in 16 minutes a game over the last 3 seasons. Not exactly the talent an SEC school is going after. He played a little better this year, but he's also a 5th year senior.

Mylik was one of the best defensive players in the country. And he was good enough to be a key player on the team a heartbeat away from this year's national championship. But I guess you're right, he wouldn't have cut the mustard on an abysmal 14-18 LSU team.

Genetics. Our people are mostly shrimps.

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Never said we couldn't have used him this season. He's a 5th year senior that was very good defensively. I'm saying he wasn't someone that was a must take recruit 3-5 years ago.

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That’s not the same as this

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Since leaving ULL, he's averaged 4.2 points per game, 1.3 assists, 3 rebounds, while shooting 43.8% FG / 26% from 3 in 16 minutes a game over the last 3 seasons. Not exactly the talent an SEC school is going after. He played a little better this year, but he's also a 5th year senior.

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3 years ago he went to Texas tech. 2 years ago he went to Houston. Both big 12 programs with substantially more success than LSU over McMahons tenure.


I don’t think he was the missing piece but a staff invested in identifying and getting Louisiana talent would have been keeping eyes on him.


This isn’t even really a McMahon issue.


I identified multiple who span across multiple coaches.


I just think it’s misinformed to say Louisiana has no basketball talent as routinely gets said on here


ETA earlier I forgot about Jared butler who started on a NC winning Baylor.


Guys like Scott drew have identified and owned recruiting Louisiana guys for over a decade now

Jared Butler was the same class as Javonte Smart. I'm guessing we weren't going to take them both since we never offered Butler and Smart committed pretty early to us.

That year (2018 signing class), Louisiana had 4 players in the top 200 recruits.

2019: 0
2020: 2 (we signed 1 - Jalen Cook)
2021: 1 (Javon Ruffin - Colorado)
2022: 1 (Solomon Washington - Texas A&M)
2023: 1 (Chris Lockett Jr. - Boise St.)
2024: 2 (Todd Jones - Portland, Kam Williams - Tulane)

Louisiana high schools haven't produced a 4 or 5 star player since the 2020 class.

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Both Hayes and Drexler played all of their high school ball in Texas. That's my point, not that we don't have raw talent but for whatever reason they don't get the training they need. Madking's list is all players from before the year 2000. How many Louisiana high school players made either high school or college All American since 2000?

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You lose dumbass. You were probably born in the 2010’s. Yes Dre lets mom moved to Houston and opened the BBQ joint. Yes Hayes family moved.
But DJ Augustin moved because of Katrina his senior year and took Wollowridge to the state finals. Your dumbass probably thinks he is a Texas player.
I can tell you that both basketball and football talent exponentially increased in Houston area after Katrina. I was born and raised here and spent time in both La and Texas as well as a few other states.
What Texas did for some of these kids is give them an opportunity where had they stayed in NOLA they may never have gotten out.

Family move after Katrina

We do..

But long story short.. ride around louisiana. You see way less players playing bball all day than you do football.

Its an inner city thing.