Now that LSU basketball coach John Brady regularly will possess a full complement of scholarships to offer to blue-chip recruits, he is making good use of them.
Brady announced Nov. 21 that four letters of intent had been received from the four players that had committed to the Tigers, and the 2003 recruiting class could be one of the strongest in LSU history.
Letters of intent were received from Regis Koundjia of the Laurinburg Institute in Laurinburg, N.C., Darnell Lazare of Woodlawn High School in Baton Rouge, Taurean “Tack” Minor of Booker T. Washington in Houston and Ross Neltner of Highlands High in Fort Thomas, Ky.
“The signing of these four players to be a part of our basketball program is a major step in continuing the process of putting our team in a position to win significantly on a consistent basis,” Brady said. “Add this class to the players we have returning next year, one can easily see a continuing bright future for LSU basketball.”
Koundjia, a 6-foot-8, 210-pound swingman from the Central African Republic, is the most highly touted of the four signees, being ranked as the No. 21 prospect in the country by ESPN.com.
Koundjia averaged 16 points and 10 rebounds a game his junior season at Laurinburg, and only is in his second year of playing competitive basketball.
“I saw Regis Koundjia for the first time this summer at the Adidas camp in Jersey, and he was arguably one of the top three players there,” Brady said. “He is a legitimate top 25 player in the country.”
Brady said LSU has not seen the likes of a player like Koundjia in a while.
“He is as good of a talent as we have ever signed,” Brady said. “He is like nobody we have had. He is swift looking except he is 6-foot-7 and he is a swingman. But he is a perimeter player.”
Minor, a 5-foot-10, 185-pound point guard, averaged 30 points, seven assists, six rebounds and three steals a game as a junior.
He is rated right behind Koundjia on ESPN.com, holding the No. 23 spot in the recruiting rankings.
“Quite honestly, I saw all the point guards in the country this summer, and if he was not arguably in the top two, then I don’t know what I am doing,” Brady said. “But I think he is extremely good.”
There have been numerous reports Minor’s attitude sometimes gets in the way of his play, but Brady is not concerned with the rumors.
“People talk about him having an attitude from time to time,” Brady said. “He’s just got some immaturity emotionally, and when we can handle that for him and help him through it, he is as good as there is from a talent standpoint.
“He’s competitive. That is what he is. He is just so competitive. But he is extremely quick and a great athlete for being 5-foot-10, 175 pounds.”
Minor chose LSU over schools such as Cincinnati, Oklahoma, Texas and Arizona.
The local product Lazare helped lead Woodlawn to the Louisiana Class 5A State Championship in 2002 when he averaged 15 points and nine rebounds a game.
The 6-foot-7 forward was named Class 5A All-State, and he chose the Tigers over Miami, Mississippi State, Louisiana Tech and Ole Miss.
“Darnell Lazare I think is going to be a very good player,” Brady said. “He will be a four-year player. He is extremely intelligent, athletic, very well coached in high school by Kenny Almond and he will come in and adjust quickly to what we want him to do.”
Neltner, who comes from the basketball-rich state of Kentucky, chose LSU after visiting Baton Rouge.
He is a 6-foot-8, 225-pound forward, and Bob Gibbons’ All-Star Report lists him as the No. 81 prospect in the country.
He averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds for Highlands High throughout his junior season.
“He’ll be the best player in Kentucky this year,” Brady said of Neltner. “Five years ago, for us to sign a top 80 player outside of Stromile (Swift), we would think we had hit the motherload. But he is going to be a good player for us in his own right.”
LSU still has one scholarship to offer in the late signing period, and the Tigers have their sights set on Baton Rouge Capitol Brandon Bass.