BATON ROUGE — LSU’s late season charge into the NCAA Tournament bore fruit as the 2003 All-Louisiana Men’s Collegiate Basketball Team was chosen, with senior forward Ronald Dupree, junior forward Jaime Lloreda and head coach John Brady taking top honors and the Tigers placing four players on the 15-man squad.
Dupree was a near-unanimous pick as state Player of the Year while Lloreda was an overwhelming choice as the state Newcomer of the Year. Brady won the Coach of the Year award. The only superlative LSU didn’t claim was Freshman of the Year, which was shared by Brion Rush of Grambling and Jermaine Wallace of Northwestern State.
Voting was done by a Louisiana Sports Writers Association panel of media members and sports information personnel from basketball-playing institutions around the state.
Dupree topped the 15-man All-Louisiana Team, as the leading vote-getter on the five-member first team. Joining him were Antonio Meeking of Louisiana Tech, Hector Romero from New Orleans, Louisiana-Lafayette’s Brad Boyd and Grambling’s Paul Haynes.
Waitari Marsh of Tulane and Louisiana-Monroe’s Kirby Lemons headed the second team, joined by Andrew Wisniewski of Centenary, LSU’s Lloreda and high scoring Chad Barnes of Loyola.
On the third team were LSU’s Torris Bright, Will McDonald of Grambling, Michael Southall of ULL, LSU’s Collis Temple III and Brandon Brown of Tulane.
With four selections, LSU had the most players on the All-Louisiana Team. Louisiana-Lafayette, Tulane and Grambling each had two players chosen.
Nine of the 15 players honored were seniors with four juniors and two sophomores. Only six of the 15 selections were Louisiana natives.
Repeat selections from the 2002 team included Dupree, Romero and Haynes, who all were first-teamers for the second consecutive season. Wisniewski made the second team again. Bright, Brown and Southall all also made the 2002 team.
Dupree, LSU’s top scorer with a 16-point average, finished as one of four LSU players to rank in the school’s top 10 in career scoring and rebounding.
He was an All-Southeastern Conference Tournament pick and a second-team All-SEC selection.
Lloreda averaged 12 points, 8.8 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game while sinking 56 percent of his shots to earn Newcomer of the Year honors.
Grambling’s Rush was the Southwestern Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year and the fifth-leading scorer in the league with a 16.7 average.
Northwestern’s Wallace was the Southland Conference Freshman of the Year and topped the Demons, the nation’s youngest Division I basketball team with 12 freshmen, by scoring 11.1 per game.
Brady coached LSU to a third postseason appearance in four years and the Tigers’ second straight. LSU finished 21-11 overall and rallied from 3-8 in the SEC to an 8-8 finish and a tie for second in the SEC West. With three wins over AP top 10-ranked teams, including then-No. 1 Arizona, the 2002-03 club became the first LSU team since 1981 to beat three top 10 teams.
Meeking, a 6-8 senior forward for Louisiana Tech, was a first-team All-Western Athletic Conference performer with a 17.9 scoring average and a 7.3 rebounding average. He was third in the WAC in scoring and fifth in rebounding and has been invited to the 51st Annual Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, a haven for pro scouts evaluating NBA Draft prospects.
Romero, last year’s Louisiana Newcomer of the Year, had his senior year at UNO end prematurely due to a Feb. 23 knee injury. The 6-7 forward still earned first-team All-Sun Belt Conference honors with averages of 18.3 points, 9.1 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game.
Boyd topped ULL in scoring (16.5 per game) and made a career-best 99 3-pointers. The All-Sun Belt performer had a 33-point outing against No. 12-ranked Mississippi State in the Ragin’ Cajuns’ upset of the Bulldogs on Nov. 23.
Haynes, a 6-6 junior forward for Grambling, was fourth in the Southwestern Athletic Conference in scoring (17.5 points) and seventh in the league in rebounding (6.8). He was a repeat first-team All-SWAC pick.
Tulane’s Marsh was the Green Wave’s top scorer (14.6) and the 6-3 senior guard averaged 23.3 against four nationally-ranked opponents. UL-Monroe’s Lemons was among national leaders in rebounding (10.2) as a 6-7 senior forward who was third in the Southland in scoring with a 16.7 average.
Wisniewski, a 6-3 junior guard, topped Centenary and all NCAA Division I players in the state with his 22.0 scoring average while hitting an impressive 50.4 percent of his shots.
Loyola’s Barnes, a 6-4 sophomore, ranked fifth in the NAIA with a 21.3 scoring average fueled by his 43.2 percent 3-point aim. He led the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference in scoring, ranked third in rebounding (7.0) and was fifth in field goal percentage (44.0) and seventh in free throw aim (73.3 percent).
LSU’s Bright earned praise for shifting from point guard to shooting guard in his senior season, helping trigger the Tigers’ late surge. LSU’s career 3-point king with 237, he averaged 11.2 points and hit 60 from behind the arc while sinking 41.1 percent of those shots.
McDonald, a 6-9 senior center, averaged 13.1 points and 8.1 rebounds for Grambling. His 2.8 average in blocked shots ranked him among national leaders and he posted one triple-double during the season. Southall, a 6-10 sophomore center for ULL, averaged 13 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.5 blocks, setting the Ragin’ Cajuns’ career record for blocks in only his second season.
Temple also capped a memorable LSU career in style, as the 6-7 second-generation Tiger averaged 11 points, 3.5 rebounds and shot better than 53 percent to help spark his team in its last seven games before getting an NCAA Tournament at-large bid.
Tulane’s Brown, a 6-8 senior, averaged 13.5 points and led Tulane in rebounding (7.4) and averaged 2.5 assists per game while shooting 50 percent from the floor.
Honorable mention choices in the voting were the co-Freshmen of the Year, Rush of Grambling and Wallace of Northwestern, along with Southeastern Louisiana junior guard Amir Abdur-Rahim (15.4 scoring average) and senior guard Jason Coleman of McNeese (14.9 average).
2003 All-Louisiana Collegiate Men’s Basketball Team
First Team (voting points listed first)
300 Ronald Dupree, LSU Sr. F 6-7 Biloxi, Miss.
210 Antonio Meeking, La. Tech Sr. F 6-8 Farmerville, La.
199 Hector Romero, New Orleans Sr. F 6-7 Barcelona, Venezuela
181 Brad Boyd, UL-Lafayette Jr. G 6-5 Opelousas, La.
177 Paul Haynes, Grambling State Jr. F 6-6 Auburn Hills, Mich.
Second Team
150 Waitari Marsh, Tulane Sr. G 6-3 Chicago, Ill.
146 Kirby Lemons, UL-Monroe Sr. F 6-7 Midland, Texas
144 Andrew Wisniewski, Centenary Jr. G 6-3 Staten Island, N.Y.
134 Jaime Lloreda, LSU Jr. F 6-9 Colon, Panama
114 Chad Barnes, Loyola So. G 6-4 New Orleans, La.
Third Team
108 Torris Bright, LSU Sr. G 6-4 Slidell, La.
75 Will McDonald, Grambling Sr. C 6-9 Pontiac, Mich.
74 Michael Southall, UL-Lafayette So. C 6-10 West Salem, Wis.
73 Collis Temple III, LSU Sr. G 6-7 Baton Rouge, La.
64 Brandon Brown, Tulane Sr. F 6-8 Houma, La.
Honorable Mention
Jason Coleman, McNeese; Brion Rush, Grambling; Amir Abdur-Rahim, Southeastern Louisiana; Jermaine Wallace, Northwestern State
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Ronald Dupree, LSU
NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR
Jaime Lloreda, LSU
FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR (tie)
Brion Rush, Grambling; Jermaine Wallace, Northwestern State
COACH OF THE YEAR
John Brady, LSU