I tend to agree. I'm not saying that he couldn't or wouldn't be a good coach here because he does have ties here and I like those who truly love the university. However, for us to recruit good talent, we have to be able to do it regionally, not locally. There are a few talented players from around these parts that come up every few years but for the most part, we've ALWAYS had to go outside of this area to get the guys that end up being legit players. I want a coach that is known on a regional level. I do like the Dennis Felton name and possibilities as well. I think there will be numerous candidates at the end of the season, we just have to be aggressive and swift with our decision.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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