First-year Nicholls coach Ricky Blanton will have a homecoming of sorts when his team battles LSU in its home opener Friday at 7 p.m in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Blanton, who played guard and forward for the LSU basketball team from 1984 to 1989, returns to the floor where he led the 1986 LSU team to the Final Four. He said being in the PMAC again will be sentimental to him, but his coaching duty will help him focus.
“So much of what I am as a player and a coach developed on that floor,” Blanton said. “It was my home away from home.”
Blanton said having his team’s opener against the Tigers may not be good, considering LSU’s high talent level and future potential.
LSU coach John Brady, Blanton’s counterpart in Friday’s contest, said his team needs to play better than it did in its two exhibition games to beat Blanton’s Colonels. He said Blanton probably will not remember his past games as an LSU player once the game starts.
“When the ball’s thrown up and the players start playing, the guys on my team don’t know Ricky Blanton,” Brady said.
Blanton averaged 11.6 points and 5.9 rebounds while shooting 53 percent from the floor during his career. He lettered four years at LSU and finished with 1,501 points and 766 rebounds, both of which rank 12th in school history.
The 1986 team, which is only the second LSU team to ever advance to the Final Four, reached the tournament finals as an 11 seed.
After leaving LSU, the Phoenix Suns drafted Blanton in the second round of the 1989 NBA Draft. He was the 46th overall pick. Blanton, who was a good friend with guard Dan Majerle, then spent two years in Europe before getting back in the league.
In 1992, he went to training camp with the Chicago Bulls, but was cut two days before opening day. When John Paxon got hurt, the organization called him up from the CBA, and Blanton got to practice against Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.
“The level of my play went up a little bit because the practices were pretty intense,” Blanton said.
When the 1992 regular season ended, the Bulls did not make Blanton a part of the playoff roster, so he went to play in Argentina. Blanton said he enjoyed playing overseas, particularly in Italy and France where he made many friends.
“The biggest thing was giving up, what every young player has, that dream of getting back into the NBA,” Blanton said of having to go to Europe to play basketball. “But it turned out to be one of the best choices I ever made.”
Blanton was an assistant for LSU during the 1996-97 season, former coach Dale Brown’s last year. He also coached at Utah State with Larry Eustachy, the current Iowa State head coach.
Blanton left coaching after the 1998 season because he wanted more stability in his life, and he came back to Baton Rouge to continue his basketball camps. Blanton said he enjoyed working with kids and being able to teach them the intricacies of basketball.
After Nicholls coach Ricky Broussard retired, Blanton returned to the bench as the Colonels’ coach. He said his staff’s goals for the team are first to put in their system, and then for the players to get better everyday.
“Change is difficult for anybody,” Blanton said. “We’re doing it on a daily basis, so it’s a slow-moving process.”
Blanton said coaching has allowed him to look back on his basketball career and realize how special he was to have played the game at a level few have reached.
“Memories, as you get older they become somewhat more of value because you’re not going to cross that road again,” Blanton said.