BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s basketball program was honored by the members of the Sixth Man Booster Club Tuesday night at the annual banquet before an overflow crowd in the ball room of the Lod Cook Alumni Center on the LSU campus.
Coach John Brady emceed the banquet which looked back at the team’s 19-15 finish which included wins in seven of the last 11 games, including two in the SEC Tournament and one in the NIT at Iowa. The season concluded with a loss to Ball State before a crowd of 12,696, the largest actual crowd to watch a game in the Assembly Center in over two seasons.
Several achievement awards were handed out with freshman Antonio Hudson and junior Brad Bridgewater earning the Most Improved Award from the coaching staff, while sophomore walkon Charlie Thompson picked up the Scholastic Award for his 4.0 GPA in pre-med. Senior Jermaine Williams earned the team defensive award and the free throw award (85.4 percent). Torris Bright picked up the Assist Award, leading the team with a 3.79 average.
Ronald Dupree, who announced Monday he would return for his senior season, was named the best offensive player, averaging a team best 16.2 points per game, and the Best Rebounder Award, averaging 8.5 rebounds a game, second best in the league.
The Tiger Award given annually be the coaching staff for the player who has “given the most to the program either this year or over a period of years” was given to Collis Temple III who battled nagging injuries all season long before having surgery on his ankle in March.
Dupree, Hudson and Temple were also recognized for getting honors from the Southeastern Conference during the season: Dupree for second team all-league, Hudson for SEC all-tournament and Temple for being named an SEC Player of the Week.
Finally, the senior awards were presented to Pete Bozek, Jason Wilson and Jermaine Williams for their contributions to the program during their time at LSU.