Usually when a basketball player goes to junior college straight out of high school it is because he did not qualify academically to attend a NCAA Division I institution.
However, in the case of LSU sophomore guard Tony Gipson, he was fully qualified to attend a Division I university, but he chose to go the JUCO route and attend Panola Junior College for one year.
It was not because of a lack of talent from Gipson, who averaged 30 points per game during his senior year at Farmerville High School. He went to Panola because coaches just did not know about him.
“My senior year I didn’t really have a good team so there wasn’t too many people looking at us,” Gipson said. “We weren’t playing too well. I didn’t really have a lot of looks but I didn’t want to go to any of the smaller schools that were recruiting me. I thought I could do better than those schools, so I decided to go JUCO and try to get some better looks.”
Gipson made the right choice. In his one year playing for the Ponies, Gipson averaged 25 points per game and got the desired looks he was hoping for in high school, including interest from Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Texas.
“I am happy I went JUCO, because I got a lot of looks,” Gipson said. “I didn’t even expect to get as many looks as I got, but I heard from some major D-I schools.”
Gipson said his older brother Teddy, who had a successful basketball career at Arkansas under Nolan Richardson, helped him throughout the process.
“He didn’t really care where I went,” Gipson said. “He just wanted me to go to a good school and just play hard. He said LSU had a good atmosphere, and he told me if I came here, I was going to have to play hard and play up to my ability, because he knew there was a lot of guards here that were coming back that had a lot of experience.”
While Teddy had a successful four years as a Razorback, the younger Gipson said he wants to take his career even further than his brother’s.
“I would be happy matching his career, but I want to go beyond what he did,” Gipson said.
Judging by early exhibition games and practice rotations, minutes may be hard to come by for the 6-foot-1 guard.
In the Tigers’ exhibition game loss to Global Sports on Nov. 7 Gipson only saw the court for four minutes. However, in the second exhibition game against the Houston Sports Group on Nov. 15, Gipson’s workload increased in the Tigers’ victory as he played for 11 minutes and recorded two rebounds and an assist.
Gipson said he knows his role will be limited as a first-year player.
“This year I probably won’t play any big role,” Gipson said. “I am going to do what I can for the team. If that is just get in to foul, get in and play some good defense, whatever coach wants me to do. I think I can be a spark off the bench.”
Gipson knows he must work on one of his main weaknesses and an aspect of his game head coach John Brady and the rest of the coaching staff says must be worked on: turning the ball over. In his limited playing time against the Houston Sports Group, Gipson gave up the ball twice.
“Sometimes I try to squeeze passes in, and I have to get that out of my game,” Gipson said. “I have to just let the flow of the game come to me.”
According to Gipson, his quickness may hurt him sometimes at this period of his basketball development.
“I’ll be trying to run down the court, and I will just run past the ball sometimes,” Gipson said. “I have to get used to that to.”
But quickness will be something Gipson will have to take advantage of in the physical Southeastern Conference, especially with his very slender 162-pound frame.
“Just from the experience I have with my teammates, the level of toughness in the conference is going to be real high,” Gipson said. “Right now I am getting used to it, because every time I touch the ball, people are all up on me. So by the time conference play comes around, I should be used to it and I should fit in perfect.”
Combining demanding practices under Brady and his small frame, Gipson said it is nothing like he has ever gone through before.
“Coach Brady wants you to fight, and if he sees you are not fighting, he is going to be on you constantly,” Gipson said. “So you just explode and tell yourself you’re ready to fight so coach will get off your back. It’s like just three hours of basketball. Your feet are hurting and you’re tired, and all you want to do is just go home and go to sleep.”