Home Grown

[JohnStOnge]

Just wanted to say that, living here in the Baton Rouge area, it's neat to see LSU getting as far as its gotten in the NCAA basketball tourney with a team dominated by players from the immediate area. As noted on the LSU/Texas telecast today, 4 of the top 6 players are from Baton Rouge, 1 is from Denham Springs, and 1 is from St. Martinville. Denham Springs is a bedroom community suburb of Baton Rouge about five miles out of town and St. Martinville is about 60 miles away.

I wonder how often teams that have made the final four have had that kind of "local" dominance of their roster.

[*****]

3 on the Northwestern State roster are from out of LA...

EDIT (was looking at the wrong roster for LSU)

[TexasTerror]

LSU has 6/13 on their roster from out of state...four of whom are FR-HS, another who is a Jr-Tr and the last is Jr-2L. Places such as the Bahamas, Houston, Oregon, Missouri, Arizona and DC. Very diverse...

[JohnStOnge]

LSU has 6/13 on their roster from out of state...four of whom are FR-HS, another who is a Jr-Tr and the last is Jr-2L. Places such as the Bahamas, Houston, Oregon, Missouri, Arizona and DC. Very diverse...

I know they have out of staters on their team. What I'm talking about is the players they actually rely on. For example, here are their top 6 scorers for the season as currently posted at their site with points per game and home towns:

Glenn Davis, 18.5, Baton Rouge, LA
Darrell Mitchell, 17.2, St. Martinville, LA
Tyrus Thomas, 12.3, Baton Rouge, LA
Tasmin Mitchell, 11.6, Denham Springs, LA
Darnell Lazare, 7.0, Baton Rouge, LA
Garrett Temple, 5.2, Baton Rouge, LA

That accounts for 71.8 points per game and the team averaged 74. Nobody else averaged more than 2.7. You look at all the other statistics...rebounding, assists, whatever...and you see the same thing.

That's what I'm getting at. I wonder if there's ever been another team in the final four...at least in the modern era...which has been able to get that kind of contribution from players who played high school so close to its campus...with 5 coming from the metropolitan area in which the campus is located (4 from the actual city) and a 6th coming from 60 miles away. Or, the question could be: When was the last time a final four team had four of its five starters from the metropolitan area in which its campus is located with the other being from a town in the same state only 60 miles away?

I think it's a rare thing to find enough talent in such a small area to fashion a top 6 that has a chance, with the right breaks, to get to the final four. And Baton Rouge's population is only about 230,000...or at least it WAS when these guys were playing high school ball (pre Katrina). It's stillnot much bigger than that.

[TexasTerror]

That's what I'm getting at. I wonder if there's ever been another team in the final four...at least in the modern era...which has been able to get that kind of contribution from players who played high school so close to its campus...with 5 coming from the metropolitan area in which the campus is located (4 from the actual city) and a 6th coming from 60 miles away.

Doubtful. That's just incredible...

Saw both Texas and LSU hardly went to their bench today. May have had two bench players each get in and this is some of the cream of the crop programs. Seems smaller schools like a NW ST have like ten guys who each get atleast ten minutes a game. You'd never see that a Texas or LSU where there's the front five and then a few guys who'll get in...

[JohnStOnge]

From listening to local sports talk radio I get the impression LSU would like to be able to go to its bench more but just can't. They don't have the quality depth right now. And you saw today how that could hurt them with their jack in the box going down several times with cramps.