It’s always been a knock on John Brady.
The LSU basketball coach can recruit with the best of them, but can’t keep them here.
Take, for example, the highly regarded recruiting class he brought to Baton Rouge in the fall of 2003. Brady reeled in five players, including future SEC Player of the Year Brandon Bass, highly recruited point guard Tack Minor and talented forwards Regis Koundjia, Ross Neltner and Darnell Lazare.
At the time the five were heralded as one of the best classes in the country and signaled, in Brady’s words, a “new era” in LSU basketball.
What a difference two-and-a-half years make.
Right now Lazare is the only one of the five contributing on the court – although Minor is out for the year with an injury and will presumably be back.
The rest bolted. Bass went to the NBA after his sophomore season and was picked by the Hornets in the second round.
Koundjia and Neltner left for other schools – Koundjia for George Washington at mid-season, Neltner to Vanderbilt at the end of the year.
Brady landed Tasmin Mitchell, the third straight year he’s reeled in the top local product. He signed prep players Ben Voogd and Magnum Rolle in the offseason.
He also gave big minutes to a pair of redshirt freshmen from Baton Rouge, Garrett Temple and Tyrus Thomas.
What happened? After a rough patch early in the year where they lost five games by a combined 11 points, the young Tigers are finally starting to gel.
With Tasmin Mitchell, Thomas and Temple starting next to the Southeastern Conference’s second and third leading scorers, Glen Davis and Darrel Mitchell, LSU has reeled off four straight conference wins.
Thomas has been the biggest surprise so far. The redshirt freshman is leading the SEC in rebounding, blocks and field goal percentage.
Suddenly the departures of Neltner and Kentrell Gransberry earlier this season make a whole lot more sense. Given the way Thomas is playing right now, there’s a better than even chance that Neltner and Gransberry looked at the depth chart before the season and said something along the lines of “There’s no way I’m getting minutes over this guy.”
It’s the same story with Koundjia, who’s currently averaging 4.7 points in 14 minutes per game for George Washington. Given that Tasmin Mitchell’s scoring almost 12 a game , it’s tough to imagine Koundjia getting even 14 minutes a game had he stuck around.
This core Brady has assembled looks like it might stick around for awhile. With all of the young players getting minutes, playing time isn’t cause for leaving.
Talent might be. Right now Thomas is garnering serious looks from NBA scouts.
ESPN analyst Chad Ford currently has Thomas ranked as the No. 5 prospect in the country.
Thomas said so far he has not paid much attention to the talk of the draft and even joked that he stopped watching ESPN because of the things people were saying about him.
“My thing is, if God grants me chance to play in the NBA, I want to be put in the position where I could play automatically,” Thomas said. “I just don’t feel like right now I’m in the position to make that step and come in and make an immediate impact on an NBA roster. The NBA’s not going anywhere.”
Thomas said if he is projected as a top five or top three pick at the end of the season, he might have to spend some time thinking about it.
“With the situation with my family it would take some consideration,” Thomas said. “But I want to play. They’ve had guys that have come out top five, top seven and they got demoted down to the NBADL. That’s not something that I want.”
Regardless of whether or not Thomas returns, the 12-5 Tigers are poised to make a run at the NCAA tournament.
And if they don’t, it won’t be because of those players who left.
Contact Elliott Brown at [email protected]