LSU one of only two paying its own bills

Media_http1bpblogspot_ikumv
BATON ROUGE - In a time when subsidies for college athletics across the country are reaching an all-time high, a report published today by USA Today said that LSU and Nebraska are the only two athletic departments in the nation that receive no subsidies.

USA Today reported that, "taken together, the subsidies for athletics at 99 public schools in the NCAA's 120-member Football Bowl Subdivision grew about 20% in four years, from $685 million in 2005 to $826 million in 2008, after adjusting for inflation. At more than a third of those schools, the percentage of athletic department revenue coming from subsidies grew during the four-year period studied."

Alabama, Auburn, and Tennessee are among the 30 schools that had their subsidies for the athletic department dramatically increase over the past four years.

LSU and Nebraska remain the only two athletic departments from across the nation that reported receiving no subsidies. The LSU athletic department receives no state tax dollars or any revenue from student fees to assist with its 81.5 million dollar budget.


Read entire story at: http://bit.ly/4Gc9mn

Filed under  //  Media  
Posted by Bill Martin  

Ally earns 2nd SEC Player of the Week honor

Media_http4bpblogspot_nnglf
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- LSU senior guard Allison Hightower has earned Southeastern Conference Women’s Basketball Player of the Week honors for the second time this season for her performance in Lady Tiger wins at No. 13 Xavier (Ohio) and South Carolina, the league office announced on Monday.

Hightower, a native of Arlington, Texas, averaged 20.5 points with 10 steals, eight assists and four blocks in the two games. She led LSU to its first win over a ranked opponent on the road since 2008 with a game-high 18 points against the Musketeers on Dec. 30 in Cincinnati. Hightower collected a career-high six steals and added four assists in the Lady Tigers’ 56-47 win.

On Sunday, Hightower scored 23 points to lead LSU to a 70-58 victory in its SEC opener at South Carolina. The 23 points were a career-best in an SEC regular season game for the preseason All-American, and they were also the most by any SEC player in games played on Sunday. She tallied four assists, four blocks and four steals while playing all 40 minutes against the Gamecocks.

Hightower leads LSU and ranks fifth in the SEC in scoring with a 17.1 average. For the season, she has collected 34 steals, 34 assists and nine blocks. In her last three games, Hightower has 15 steals. The 2010 SEC Preseason Player of the Year has reached double-figures in 11 straight games and sits as the 21st-leading all-time scorer in LSU history with 1,150 career points.

Filed under  //  Media  
Posted by Bill Martin  

Meek named 28th on list of great Tigers the past decade

Media_http4bpblogspot_pphii
From andthevalleyshook.com, Temeka Johnson was named 28th on their list of 30 greatest Tigers of the last decade:


Temeka Johnson is the greatest point guard in LSU's history. She won the Lieberman Award her senior year, 2005, awarded to the nation's top point guard. She guided LSU to the Final Four every year she was a starter, and graduated with just about every record for assists one can imagine. She went on to the WNBA success and won a national title with the Mercury.

So let's look at the great things Temeka did for the program. First and foremost among them, she arrived as a partial qualifier in 2000 and was therefore required to sit out the 2000-2001 season. Instead of compalining, Temeka worked hard in the classroom and graduated in August of 2004, earning an extra year of eligibility.

And what an extra year. Johnson did everything she could to avenge that loss in 2004, and earned the aforementioned Liberman Award and All-American honors en route to setting the SEC record for career assists. Beware arbitrary end points, but LSU's media guide notes she is the only player in LSU history with 1000 points, 500 assists, and 50 rebounds. Which is even more absurd when you think that she was a small 5'3".

On a team dominated by the frontcourt stars, Johnson's guiding hand kept the team on track. She was overshadowed by Augustus and Fowles, but she was every bit as important of a cog in those great teams. No, they never won the national title, but consistent greatness is never truly appreciated. Four straight Final Fours is a tremendous accomplishment, one that was made possible by the greatest point guard we ever had the good fortune to have.

Filed under  //  Media   Temeka Johnson  
Posted by Bill Martin  

Olympic Connection in today's LSU-South Carolina game

Media_http3bpblogspot_fhtqh
From Scott Hotard of The Advocate:


When he meets Dawn Staley at midcourt before today’s game, LSU women’s basketball coach Van Chancellor expects some good-natured ribbing between the two.

“She’ll remind me she won me a gold medal — tell me that three or four times,” Chancellor said. “I’ll remind her I’m the one who picked her to play for me.”

Staley, one of the great players in women’s basketball history, won three Olympic gold medals, the last with Chancellor as coach in 2004. She finished her professional career with Chancellor, playing two seasons on the Houston Comets he coached.

Nowadays, Staley and Chancellor are rivals.

Staley took over the South Carolina women’s program two seasons ago after leading Temple to six NCAA tournaments in eight seasons.

Chancellor left the Comets three years ago and has kept LSU among the nation’s elite in his return to the college game.

On the opening day of Southeastern Conference play, Chancellor and Staley reunite when No. 11 LSU (11-1) faces the Gamecocks (7-5) at 5 p.m. in Columbia, S.C.

Read Scott's entire article: http://bit.ly/4nmzLc

Filed under  //  Media   Team USA  
Posted by Bill Martin  

Kent Lowe steps in and steps up

Media_http2bpblogspot_kfaze
Kent Lowe - Sr. Associate Sports Information Director (1-1-10):
I was fortunate to get to witness some of Coach Sue Gunter’s milestone wins at LSU and through a certain set of circumstances, I was able to witness Coach Van Chancellor capture his 500th collegiate win on Wednesday when LSU’s defense stepped up and made a statement against a very good Xavier team.

As many of you know I’ve been the men’s basketball SID for 22 years now and for many years did color on home games with Patrick Wright on women’s games. Due to scheduling situations with a lot of our staff in Orlando for the bowl game and with the LSU men playing in Cincinnati the night before, it just made sense for me to stay and cover the women’s game as well. That’s what our sports information staff does is help each other out to make sure we cover things in the right way.

So it was a pleasure to watch the game up close from courtside, I’ve know Coach Chancellor and Coach Starkey for years as well as the other members of the staff. It was a lot of fun and I hope I was able to provide women’s basketball SID Bill Martin some notes and stats that helped him write the story from long-distance in Orlando. I will return to my role as one of the team’s favorite spectators and hopefully I’ll be able to help Bill again during a long post-season run.


Geaux Lady Tigers!

Filed under  //  Media  
Posted by Bill Martin  

Seimone named Female Athlete of the Decade

Media_http3bpblogspot_zqldg
From Jim Kleinpeter, The Times Picayune:


BATON ROUGE - Simply calling Seimone Augustus The Times-Picayune Female Athlete of the Decade doesn't do her justice.

Augustus is the best player in the 34-season history of the LSU women's basketball program and the early leader for Female Athlete of the Century for those forward thinkers.

The Baton Rouge native was a three-time All-American and a two-time consensus National Player of the Year, twice winning the Wade Trophy, and the Naismith, Wooden, Associated Press and Honda Awards for women's basketball.

Augustus is LSU's second-leading scorer all-time with 2,702 points, a 19.3 average per game.

But her contributions to LSU women's basketball went beyond personal honors. She was a terrific all-around player who made her teammates better, and helped LSU to three consecutive Final Four appearances, which started a run of five consecutive Final Fours for the program.

"I'm glad I made the choice to go to LSU, " she said. "A lot of people ask me if I could go back would I change it. I'm like 'No, I enjoyed being coached by Coach (Sue) Gunter, Coach (Pokey) Chatman and Coach (Bob) Starkey. I enjoyed the run we had. The four years I was there we made a lot of history.

Read entire article: http://bit.ly/7pTkZF

Filed under  //  Media   Seimone Augustus  
Posted by Bill Martin  

Seimone named to SI All-Decade Team

Media_http4bpblogspot_cbfnj
The following was comprised by Kelli Anderson at SI.com


Guard: Diana Taurasi, UConn. She won the 2002 NCAA title surrounded by great talent, the 2003 title accompanied by a team of role players and the 2004 title because, as Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma put it, "We have Diana and you don't." She is our women's college basketball Player of the Decade.

Guard: Sue Bird, UConn. Her unique package of playmaking skills, vision, instinct and clutch shooting helped Connecticut win two NCAA titles, in 2000 and 2002. Bird's 45.9 percent career three-point shooting is still the best in UConn history.

Forward: Candace Parker, Tennessee. The 6-foot-4 guard/forward/center could play every position, fill out every statistical box -- and dunk. She led the Lady Vols to back-to-back titles in 2007 and 2008, the latter while suffering a dislocated left shoulder.

Forward: Seimone Augustus, LSU. The player LSU athletic director Skip Bertman called "the most important recruit in the history of LSU," never led the Lady Tigers to a national title, but her trademark feathery jumper (and 19.3 points and 5.2 rebounds a game) guided LSU to three straight Final Fours and established the program as a perennial title contender.

Center: Courtney Paris, Oklahoma. While dominating the post for the Sooners from 2005-2009, the four-time Kodak/State Farm All-American set a number of records, including the NCAA mark for consecutive double-doubles, with 112.

Coach: Geno Auriemma. Five NCAA title in 10 years -- two of them, 2002 and 2009, capping undefeated seasons -- is downright Wooden-esque.

Filed under  //  Media   Seimone Augustus  
Posted by Bill Martin  

Joyce Walker jersey to be retired at Garfield High School

Media_http4bpblogspot_aihqi
Before Garfield's boys basketball game against Lakes on Saturday, the Bulldogs are going to honor the past with their first basketball hall of fame inductions.

The school will recognize the 1974 "Superdogs" in a ceremony that begins at 7 p.m. That season Garfield finished unbeaten and is considered one of the best teams in state history.
Lakes coach JoJo Rodriguez was a player on that team and later, as the Bulldogs' coach, he led Garfield to the 1993 state championship.

The school is also retiring Joyce Walker's jersey. Walker graduated from Garfield in 1980 -- the Bulldogs won a championship that season -- before going on to become an All-American at LSU. She later became one of the first women to play with the Harlem Globetrotters and is widely considered the best female player to come out of Washington.

Like Rodriguez, Walker later coached her alma mater to a state title in 2005.

Garfield athletic director Jim Valiere said there will be music, videos and a slide show during the ceremony. The varsity game will start once the induction and jersey retirement is over.

Filed under  //  Alumni   Media  
Posted by Bill Martin  

What they said about Coach Gunter

Media_http4bpblogspot_vfqpe
“For me personally, when I came to LSU, one of the things that just appealed to me was that I was taking over a program that Sue Gunter made famous. That was a pleasant thought for me personally. She and I were both raised in small, rural Mississippi towns about 50 miles apart, and we just have so much in common. I can’t think of a greater way to honor someone. She was a better person than she was a coach, and she was a great coach.”
-- LSU head coach Van Chancellor

“You look at the program and how far it’s come and it really speaks volumes for what she’s done. If you look at the people that she’s brought into the program, the people that she’s trusted and instilled so much value in, you see in the record books how well she did and what a great job she did. It’s not just the records, though. Look at all the alumni that come back. It has to be something that she’s done. When you’re around great people, you always want to embrace that. Coach Gunter was a player’s coach. Even though she was a little older, she adapted to the generations that she recruited, which was good for us. We never had to change to try to fit her. She basically changed to fit us. You don’t ever see that. Once certain people get older, you just adapt to them, but she did everything she could to try to adapt to us. She was always there to pick us up.”
-- Former LSU point guard and 2009 WNBA champ Temeka Johnson

“Coach Gunter is someone who has greatly influenced me as a coach and as a person. That influence is just as strong today ever before. I feel obligated to carry on her legacy of love for the game and the players that play it so that I can share her influence.”
-- LSU associate head coach Bob Starkey

“Sue Gunter was a wonderful friend, an exceptional person and an incredibly talented basketball coach. Sue was definitely one of the pioneers of women’s collegiate basketball. She was one of my mentor. She taught me about the delicate balance of coaching and teaching the game and the value of great player-coach relationships. She made playing basketball fun due to her ability to connect with her players.”
-- Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt

“There was always a lot of respect, not just as a coach, but in life. She was an unbelievable friend and sister. I will always cherish what we had. And she was a hell of a coach.”
-- Ann Meyers

“I’m reminded every day this is how I want to be remembered. I want to live my life the way Coach Gunter lived.”
-- Former LSU three-time All-SEC player Cornelia Gayden

Filed under  //  Media   Sue Gunter  
Posted by Bill Martin