Capitol High School in Baton Rouge has been good to LSU.
LSU Lady Tiger freshman phenom Seimone Augustus, who graduated from Capitol in 2002 and ranked as the top women’s basketball recruit in the country by numerous publications, leads the Lady Tigers in scoring with 15.5 points per game and also pulls down 5.3 rebounds per game.
Augustus is a large part of the reason LSU is 22-1 on the season and ranked fourth in the country by the Associated Press.
Now one of her high school friends, Brandon Bass, a 6-foot-8, 240 pound power forward, who is a senior at Capitol, will join her after he committed to play for head coach John Brady on Valentine’s Day.
ESPN.com ranks Bass as the No. 10 overall prospect in the country and the third overall power forward.
“I wanted to stay home,” Bass said of his decision last night after scoring 37 points in Capitol’s 60-42 victory over McKinley. “I want to try to help LSU as a team get back the winning tradition.”
Bass said even though Augustus wanted him to come to LSU, she never really pushed him to go one way or the other.
“We never talked much about it,” Bass said. “But every time I saw her, she always said stuff like, ‘LSU’ because she knew I was coming, and she wanted me to come.”
Bass and fellow LSU recruit Taurean “Tac” Minor, a 5-foot-10 point guard from Booker T. Washington High School in Houston, developed a relationship over the recruiting process, and Bass said he could not let his friend down.
“Me and Tac talked a lot,” Bass said. “And I told him if he came that I would come. That [Minor’s commitment] helped out because Tac is a nice guard. I think he is the best guard in the country, and the guards make up the team.”
With the signature of Minor, a Top 25 player according to ESPN.com, and Regis Koundjia, a 6-foot-7 small forward from North Carolina, also a Top 25 player, the Tigers are in line to receive a Top 5 recruiting class in some publications with the addition of Bass.
Darnell Lazare, a 6-foot-8 forward and product of Woodlawn of Baton Rouge, also already signed with LSU along with 6-foot-8 forward Ross Neltner of Highlands High in Ft. Thomas, Ky., who is a front runner for the prestigious Mr. Basketball Award in Kentucky.
According to Bass playing time was not a factor, because all of the schools recruiting him, including Mississippi State, Connecticut, Miami and the University of Southern California, all promised him the same thing.
“All the teams that recruited me said I was going to get some playing time,” Bass said. “All of them said I was going to come in as a freshman and start or get a lot of minutes, so it was not that.”
Alvin Stewart, the head coach of the men’s and women’s programs at Capitol, is very proud of the products his employer is turning out.
“It is all about the kids and their families being happy,” Stewart said. “The fact that the kids can go on and play college ball and get an education, that is the main thing. You go to school to get an education, not to play basketball. So the fact that we can turn out quality kids, that is more important than anything else.”