This week we covered baseball, basketball and football in various ways.
We’re headed to Tampa on Sunday for the start of SEC Media Days on Monday morning. When we return home in a week, the Tigers will be a week from reporting to Fall Camp, and another academic year will be upon us.
I won’t go as far as to say summer moves quickly when baseball is cut short, but we’re near the finish line now. Have a great weekend!
Say everyone (not Madar) is eligible and playing for WW this season – who is our leading scorer when we get to March?
My answer is RJ Luis, but I’ll take the opportunity to go a little bit more in depth. First, I think Luis’s eligibility is a longshot.
Second, in speaking to a source this week, LSU’s basketball roster is a long way from being finalized publicly. We saw reporting this week that suggested more than a dozen college basketball players are fighting for a fifth year. All the COVID players got a fifth, and the players moving forward got a fifth. The guys who played 2021-2026 are suggesting they’re being boxed in a little bit.
Don’t be surprised over the next three weeks if some names trickle out that you haven’t previously heard. LSU needs guard help in a big way. I’m told it’s coming.
What vibes are you currently sensing from the LSU football program? Might it be good, bad, meh or something else?
I’ve learned this over the last three years. We don’t really know. Not to stand on my lawn and scream at the clouds, but when I started in beat writing in 2011, we got more personal access to the players across all sports. We got some one-on-ones and spoke to the team a couple of times a week. I think it was easier to tell at that point. Now, they are sent to talk to eight of us at once, and it’s not quite the same.
We’re not at practice. We’re not in the locker room. Guys put up a solid front when it’s time to talk to the media for five minutes.
I’ll certainly ask Whit Weeks, TJ Dottery and Trey’Dez Green how things are going next week, but ultimately, I’m not naive enough to think I’ll have a real pulse of the team from that.
In my experience, teams always have good vibes before a game is lost. The best teams have a great energy about them when they lose. That’ll be the true test, because I don’t have this team going 12-0.
How much did LSU baseball pay for this team versus last year’s team?
That I don’t know, but I know that baseball was given some additional revenue sharing funds this time around. Verge Ausberry said that on the record. I did have a conversation with someone in LSU athletics about the different programs within LSU’s athletics department engaging in a tug-o-war for money.
The answer I got was that each coach kind of knows who and where to go for cash. Football is going to carry the trump card, but coaches are generally happy with how things are at the moment. Of course, they’d always like a little more. But I don’t get the sense that anyone feels they’re being short-changed.
LSU was able to compete with Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee for some really big names in this portal cycle. That doesn’t only come down to dollars and cents. Jay Johnson can really recruit. But the additional funding certainly helps. There was a feeling in the summer of 2025 that LSU did miss largely based on money in a couple of instances.
Who do you expect to surprise us most in fall scrimmages?
I guess if I knew, it wouldn’t be a surprise. But I’ll run with it. Mason Braun is eventually going to hit for power. Maybe it’s this fall. The other returner I have a quiet confidence in is Ethan Plog. His delivery and stuff are perfect for a couple of left-handed bullpen outs. He’s not a starter. He’s not a closer. He needs to get two outs in the seventh against at least one potent lefty. He throws 94 mph and has a decent breaking ball from that funky delivery. Last fall, he was dominant at times. He can get back to that.
