New Hoops Facility Signals New Era; Basketball Recruiting News; The BBB's Shot At Gov. Jindal

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Yesterday was the first day on the job for new LSU AD Joe Alleva, and he got to take part in a groundbreaking. Specifically, the ceremony was the launch of the new basketball practice facility, a $14 million showpiece on the north side of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center which will provide courts and locker room facilities for men's and women's basketball, making for a much smoother operation for the four sports (men's and women's basketball, volleyball and gymnastics) which use the PMAC for practices and games.

In doing so, the PMAC will be freed up for non-athletic events like concerts, and that should make for a good bit more revenue generation.

Quotes from Alleva, men's hoops coach Trent Johnson and women's coach Van Chancellor, which can be found here, here and here make it obvious they're stoked about the new facility. Johnson didn't make a big deal about facilities when he came to LSU - he won with mediocre facilities at Stanford and Nevada - but he's extremely happy to be able to sell the new digs to recruits. Chancellor is fired up that he now has the freedom to practice when he wants without having to make out a schedule ahead of time so his club can get shoehorned into the PMAC slate. And Alleva sees this as the last in the latest round of facility upgrades, with the next project on hand a sprucing-up of the Tiger Stadium facade. The new AD wants to attack those old abandoned dorm rooms and do something with them.

Could be that old persistent idea for turning them into tailgating suites might get new life.

Either way, the practice facility should dramatically improve LSU's recruiting for men's hoops. There are now no excuses for basketball here to be less than outstanding.

Hoops Recruiting Stuff: Johnson isn't just sitting around talking about how his recruiting will do well with the new facilities; he's busting his butt on the recruiting trail.

Strangely, it seems like the staff is doing more work for the 2010 class than the 2009, though, as they've been extremely aggressive in working on Louisiana's bumper crop of recruits for that year. Among the rising juniors Johnson and his assistants have already jumped on are 6-3 Christian Life combo guard Langston Galloway, 6-3 Sulphur guard Chip Armelin, 6-8 swingman Matt LeBato, also of Sulphur, 6-4 Peabody guard Markel Brown and 6-6 forward Matt Derenbecker, recently of Pontchatoula but scheduled to attend Country Day in Metairie this fall.

No word so far on whether Johnson and his assistants have made a move on 6-5 guard D'Audrio Patton at Ruston, who is another top-flight player.

It's a monster crop of kids in the state for 2010, and Johnson is probably smart lining LSU up as the favorite for as many of them as he can. Galloway is a difference-maker in the Tyrus Thomas-Glen Davis-Tasmin Mitchell mold, except unlike those guys he's a guard. As he continues to develop he's quite likely a McDonald's All-American. The rest of the group should all be rated in the top 100 or at least the top 150. So making a giant haul out of those guys makes a lot of sense.

What we don't have a lot of information on, though, is which high school seniors Johnson is working on. We know Country Day forward Eddie Ludwig has an offer, and we know Johnson is hot after 6-10 Oklahoma City post man Daniel Orton (but so is everybody else, so he might be a long shot), but other than those guys it's still a bit unknown who the main targets are. And Johnson has at least four scholarships to give with Chris Johnson, Marcus Thornton, Quentin Thornton, Terry Martin and Garrett Temple all being seniors. I don't imagine he'd hold more than one extra scholarship for 2010 as those guys graduate.

One player to watch is 6-5 Memphis, TN Harding Academy swingman Marlon Brown, who is a Top 100-quality hoop recruit. Brown is also the No. 2-rated wide receiver in the country behind Bastrop's Reuben Randle, and he says LSU is getting one of his five official visits. Two-sport athletes in football and basketball are pretty rare, especially ones who can actually be any good, but he's worth watching anyway given that he says he wants to play both. I'm not sure where Brown could go to find a better opportunity to (1) win a national championship in football and (2) see immediate playing time in basketball. Other than Delwan Graham, LSU is going to be pretty thin on the wings once Temple, Thornton and Martin finish their eligibility.

What Is The Governor Thinking? I suspect I could be way off base here, but reading this article in the Advocate today made my blood boil. Charlie Weems, who has been the ultimate good guy on the LSU Board of Supervisors for a long time, is being replaced by Gov. Bobby Jindal along with Hal Hinchliffe of Monroe.

As I understand it, Louis Lambert and Ben Mount are also headed off into th sunset, though their replacements haven't been announced.

The replacements for Weems and Hinchliffe are Blake Chatelain, president of Red River Bank in Alexandria, and James Moore of Moore Oil in Monroe. By all accounts these are top-notch people and I have no problem with them being on the board.

But getting rid of Charlie Weems is just an awful decision. Just awful. Whoever advised Jindal on such a stupid mistake ought to be dunked in the Mississippi. Losing a guy who has fought the good fight up there for all those years does a lot of damage.

I didn't say anything about Jindal's sketchy handling of that legislative pay raise on this page, because I was understanding of the situation the idiot legislators put him in, but this is the very epitome of an unforced error on the part of the governor.

Mount held an at-large position on that board, meaning he wasn't tied to any particular congressional district. If Jindal's people aren't complete buffoons somebody will wake up and use that spot to get Weems back on that board. Otherwise, it's a major loss for LSU. And LSU wasn't supposed to be taking major losses while Jindal was governor.