Candidates the Cajuns should consider for MBB coach

[SlappyCajun]

_ At one point UL had Jesse Evans, Jerry Baldwin and James Square making us the only D-1 school in the country with an African-American head football and basketball coach and an African-American Band Director.

When Shipley was here we were so far ahead of the curve in breaking the race barrier that nobody knew how to handle us. The NCAA was so stunned that they levied the greatest penalty in history to slow us down. Before you ask I'll answer by saying yes, I feel the USL death penallty was race belated. We had done something nobody else had done other than Texas-Western and the only way to stop us was to "kill us".

With this said I still say our two best choices are Felton or Gillispie with Pierre being a distant third. _

Do you have no interest in Billy Kennedy??? Or do you think that we cannot get him...

[SlappyCajun]

_ No offense, but Louisiana is a crap basketball state when it comes to collegiate talent. Bobby Champagne would flounder here. We do not need or should we look at a local guy. We have tradition and must not settle for a Coach because he is a coon_____. _

You can say that Bobby may not be a good hire, but to say that Louisiana is a crap basketball state is about the most ridiculous thing ever....

If you can recruit LA and Houston, you can win the Sunbelt every year....


Dwayne Mitchell - Louisiana
Brad Boyd - Louisiana
Tyren Johnson - Louisiana
Laurie Bridges - Louisiana
Antoine Landry - Louisiana
All of LSU's Final Four Team - Louisiana
Greg Monroe - First Round Draft pick and Georgetown's best player, Louisiana
Baylor's Starting Backcourt (Tweety Carter and LaceDarius Dunn) - Louisiana
Marcus Thornton - Hornets starting two guard (Louisiana went to JUCO, because no one thought he was good enough to prop)
Millsap Brothers - Louisiana
Brandon Mouton - (Started on Texas Final Four team - LA)
Karl Malone - Louisiana
Willis Reed - Louisiana
All of Bobby Knights best players at Texas Tech - LA
Perry Stevenson at Kentucky
Carrol Boudreaux, Kevin Brooks, Aaron Mitchell, Eric Mouton
Kevin Figaro, Graylin Warner
Von Wafer (Rockets)
David Benoit
Robert Pack

LA is full of really really good college basketball players. I will argue this all day long.

[cajun4life]

_ You can say that Bobby may not be a good hire, but to say that Louisiana is a crap basketball state is about the most ridiculous thing ever....

If you can recruit LA and Houston, you can win the Sunbelt every year....


Dwayne Mitchell - Louisiana
Brad Boyd - Louisiana
Tyren Johnson - Louisiana
Laurie Bridges - Louisiana
Antoine Landry - Louisiana
All of LSU's Final Four Team - Louisiana
Greg Monroe - First Round Draft pick and Georgetown's best player, Louisiana
Baylor's Starting Backcourt (Tweety Carter and LaceDarius Dunn) - Louisiana
Marcus Thornton - Hornets starting two guard (Louisiana went to JUCO, because no one thought he was good enough to prop)
Millsap Brothers - Louisiana
Brandon Mouton - (Started on Texas Final Four team - LA)
Karl Malone - Louisiana
Willis Reed - Louisiana
All of Bobby Knights best players at Texas Tech - LA
Perry Stevenson at Kentucky
Carrol Boudreaux, Kevin Brooks, Aaron Mitchell, Eric Mouton
Kevin Figaro, Graylin Warner
Von Wafer (Rockets)
David Benoit
Robert Pack

LA is full of really really good college basketball players. I will argue this all day long. _

Ok so you name 20 basketball studs from Louisiana, you do realize that there are like 14 D1 schools that play basketball is Louisiana? You can argue all you want, Louisiana has never produced enough talent to supply any school with enough talented players to win on a national level consistently. Hell Robert Lee signed 6 or 7 of the best players from Louisiana within the last 5 years and we are not a good team. We have always been successful because we had the best basketball players, not because they are from Louisiana.

I guarantee you that if we were winning 20-25 games a year like we use to and we only had 1 or 2 players from Louisiana no one would care. Again Louisiana is a great football state, but in basketball La is not even close to producing enough talent to keep even 3 schools fully stocked much less 14 or whatever number we have.

[SlappyCajun]

_ Ok so you name 20 basketball studs from Louisiana, you do realize that there are like 14 D1 schools that play basketball is Louisiana? You can argue all you want, Louisiana has never produced enough talent to supply any school with enough talented players to win on a national level consistently. Hell Robert Lee signed 6 or 7 of the best players from Louisiana within the last 5 years and we are not a good team. We have always been successful because we had the best basketball players, not because they are from Louisiana.

I guarantee you that if we were winning 20-25 games a year like we use to and we only had 1 or 2 players from Louisiana no one would care. Again Louisiana is a great football state, but in basketball La is not even close to producing enough talent to keep even 3 schools fully stocked much less 14 or whatever number we have. _

a) Define win on a national level consistently?

b) There are plenty of players in Louisiana.

c) We can beat out the majority of the 14 schools you listed. Plus, I'm not sure if the that is an accurate number, and now, 2 of those schools are going D3.

d) So, would UL not be successful if the starting line up was this, Tyren Johnson, Kenneth Cooper, Storm Warren, Ryan Francis, and Bo Spencer? These guys could all be on the same team. In fact, the Cajuns could have had this line up fairly feasibly, if you had someone who could lock down Louisiana.

Again, the talent in this state is not the problem, its being able to recruit it to come and play for you, and then coach it.

In fact, I think the talent on our current team is good enough to win the league.

[SlappyCajun]

Also, your term win consistently on a national level is ambiguous.

What does that mean. Win twenty games a year. Be in the sweet 16 every year. Win a conference championship every year.

John Brady was pretty darn good with Louisiana players at LSU in one of the toughest leagues in the country, therefore I think that we could be pretty consistently successful at our level.

[cajun4life]

_ a) Define win on a national level consistently?

b) There are plenty of players in Louisiana.

c) We can beat out the majority of the 14 schools you listed. Plus, I'm not sure if the that is an accurate number, and now, 2 of those schools are going D3.

d) So, would UL not be successful if the starting line up was this, Tyren Johnson, Kenneth Cooper, Storm Warren, Ryan Francis, and Bo Spencer? These guys could all be on the same team. In fact, the Cajuns could have had this line up fairly feasibly, if you had someone who could lock down Louisiana.

Again, the talent in this state is not the problem, its being able to recruit it to come and play for you, and then coach it.

In fact, I think the talent on our current team is good enough to win the league. _

What you are saying is that UL would recruit in a vacuum. We can not sign all of the top basketball players in the state. LSU will grab whoever they want like they do in every sport.

Winning consistently on a national level is winning against tough OOC opponents, not Centenary or Mobile but teams that we beat as recent as 2004 like Miss St. and other program like them. UL was a TOP 10 program and has great tradition. I want the Cajuns to be like Gonzaga or Butler or any mid major that is consistently in the Top 25.

Tyren Johnson was a project player who worked his ass off to become the player he has turned in to. He was not highly recruited out of high school. You can not build a program around project players. Ryan Francis is dead, shot by a banger. Kenneth Cooper and Bo Spencer would help the Cajuns, but tell me who would you replace them with? Where is your bench players? Louisiana can not supply enough basketball talent to supply more than 1 school on a national level.

As far as enough talent to win the Belt which is the 21st rated conference if you go by RPI is not saying much. The Belt sucks as a whole conference and has been steadily declining in all sports besides football.

[ManAboutTown]

_ a) Define win on a national level consistently?

b) There are plenty of players in Louisiana.

c) We can beat out the majority of the 14 schools you listed. Plus, I'm not sure if the that is an accurate number, and now, 2 of those schools are going D3.

d) So, would UL not be successful if the starting line up was this, Tyren Johnson, Kenneth Cooper, Storm Warren, Ryan Francis, and Bo Spencer? These guys could all be on the same team. In fact, the Cajuns could have had this line up fairly feasibly, if you had someone who could lock down Louisiana.

Again, the talent in this state is not the problem, its being able to recruit it to come and play for you, and then coach it.

In fact, I think the talent on our current team is good enough to win the league. _

You won that argument a long time ago, but this sealed it for me

[ManAboutTown]

_ You won that argument a long time ago, but this sealed it for me _

And baseball, and softball. FWIW

[cajun4life]

_ And baseball, and softball. FWIW _

We are not talking about baseball or softball, those are completely different sports. Plus in Softball at least we are an Elite program and have Louisiana and East Texas to draw from.

[ManAboutTown]

_ We are not talking about baseball or softball, those are completely different sports. Plus in Softball at least we are an Elite program and have Louisiana and East Texas to draw from. _

no, I meant the league is not declining in those sports.

[Tiredof theBS]

_ Do you have no interest in Billy Kennedy??? Or do you think that we cannot get him... _

Why would Kennedy want to come here? His basketball team has a private 3000 square foot strength and conditioning center, and has a top notch staff. They play in a basketball "pit" that also happens to hold 8000+. His team currently stands at 25-3, 13-0 at home. He has 6 players averaging 10 points per game, 5 of which will be back next year, 3 of which are freshman or sophomores. Three of his starting 5 will be back on the Racer Arena Court next year.

Do I think we can get him? Nope, now let's move onto our second choice which should be Felton or Gilispie. Both come with baggage. Both will use us as a stepping stone. Both will bet us into the round of 32 or sweet 16 in the next 3 seasons. If we can't get them I suggest we "settle" for Pierre which would be a great first choice. Going after those three we can't lose.

[SlappyCajun]

_ What you are saying is that UL would recruit in a vacuum. We can not sign all of the top basketball players in the state. LSU will grab whoever they want like they do in every sport.

Winning consistently on a national level is winning against tough OOC opponents, not Centenary or Mobile but teams that we beat as recent as 2004 like Miss St. and other program like them. UL was a TOP 10 program and has great tradition. I want the Cajuns to be like Gonzaga or Butler or any mid major that is consistently in the Top 25.

Tyren Johnson was a project player who worked his ass off to become the player he has turned in to. He was not highly recruited out of high school. You can not build a program around project players. Ryan Francis is dead, shot by a banger. Kenneth Cooper and Bo Spencer would help the Cajuns, but tell me who would you replace them with? Where is your bench players? Louisiana can not supply enough basketball talent to supply more than 1 school on a national level.

As far as enough talent to win the Belt which is the 21st rated conference if you go by RPI is not saying much. The Belt sucks as a whole conference and has been steadily declining in all sports besides football. _

I agree about Tyren, but he is the player of the year in the league, whether he wins it or not.

Ryan Franics is Rick Majerus taking the USC job away from being a Cajun.

Kenneth Cooper almost came here.

Storm Warren and Bo Spencer if Butch Pierre or Tim Floyd is the coach would probably be Cajuns.

All I'm saying is that at a a school like UL, you have 13 scholarships. Does Louisiana produce a little over 3 players per year that are of a caliber that can help us compete nationally. I think the answer is yes.

Also the original argument was based on the fact that you said Louisiana was crap in basketball. It is not. If you think it is, you must not follow basketball in the other 49 states, because we stack up fairly well.

[Turbine]

Bad: UL's treatment of African American coaches might scare away potential prospects. Playing against his old school might not interest him. He's still behind WKU in the SBC. The Cajuns are barely the best team in their division.

As mentioned UL's treatment of African American coaches has been impeccable especially considering at one point UL was one of only two D1 Schools in America with two African Americans as head coach.

Non basketball: Baldwin was once an Associate Head Coach and Defensive Coordinator under Denardo who -by the time UL hired him- had quietly been demoted several times to the point was his status was that of being a position coach. Hiring him as a head coach was treating him extremely nice. Letting him go early was also a nice thing to do before he totally ruined his reputation. If he had wanted to coach again -he didn't- he could have. Three years of failure is not insurmountable. If he had been retained for say 6 years he would have been mistreated.

I agree Evans was thrown under the bus -in a single instance- with a public press conference promising to get to the bottom of the Anthony Johnson situation. The message was clear Evans was on trial. However when finally cleared of wrongdoing there was no press conference to clear Evans, he was exonerated quietly. Still in total he was treated nicely at UL.

If you are saying UL has kept some coaches to long, then yes a few have been mistreated.

Now I am going to spin your statement. By being overly nice to Lee and Rogers UL has made the job less attractive to coaches in general. With each losing season sanctioned by the school, the UL job has become considerably less attractive. Attractive jobs bring intangibles above and beyond money. But when you let programs slide the price a school must pay to get a quality head coach (one that will get you to where you want to be) rises dramatically. So yes the nice treatment certain coaches have received very well could "scare away potential prospects."


jmo

[cajun4life]

_ what 6 or 7 players he signed that were the best from louisian, maybe top 50 from louisiana _

That is exactly my point Brad, you know as well as I do that Louisiana does not have enough talent to feed all of the schools within Louisiana. Yes we can make a core group of guys from La and win like we did with like Evans did. But we also had guys like Big Mike, Anthony Johnson, Tirus Wade, Orien Green, Brett Smith and Brian Hamilton to name a few who were a huge part of our program. They were major contributors to our basketball program.

We need a coach who can get players of that caliber to come to UL. Does Louisiana produce those types of players year in and year out? Maybe, but they are not coming here out of high school. They may come back like Dewayne Mitchell did but to get them out of high school is a different story.

[cajun4life]

_ no, I meant the league is not declining in those sports. _

The league is declining in baseball, that is a fact.