BATON ROUGE – The Southeastern Conference on Tuesday announced the 14 former basketball greats who will represent their member institutions at the SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament March 11-15 at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee as Allstate SEC Basketball Legends.
“The Allstate® SEC Basketball Legends Program allows us to honor our past and show everyone why the SEC is one of the nation’s premier basketball conferences,” said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive.
LSU’s honoree is former All-SEC standout and now current student assistant for the men’s basketball program, Ronald Dupree.
The 2015 class also includes C.M. Newton, Alabama; Darrell Walker, Arkansas; Chris Porter, Auburn; Eddie Shannon, Florida; Jacky Dorsey, Georgia; Bob Burrow, Kentucky; B.L. “Country” Graham, Ole Miss; Doug Hutton, Mississippi State; Derrick Chievous, Missouri; Jack Thompson, South Carolina; Johnny Darden, Tennessee; Sonny Parker, Texas A&M; Bruce Elder, Vanderbilt.
Each SEC Basketball Legend will be recognized at halftime of his institution’s first game at the tournament.
Highlighting the schedule of events at the Sunkist Soda SEC FanFare will be appearances by selected legends. FanFare will be open Thursday-Saturday, March 12-14.
This marks the 17th year of the SEC Basketball Legends program.
Dupree, who played at LSU from 1999-2003, played on two NCAA and one NIT team, including the 2000 SEC Championship team that reached the NCAA Sweet 16. He was a three-time All-SEC selection and led the SEC in scoring with 17.3 points per game in 2001. He still ranks ninth all-time with 1,726 career points. In 129 career games, Dupree averaged 13.4 points and his 907 rebounds also ranks ninth all-time at LSU.
Dupree, now 33, played 11 years of pro basketball and recorded six years of experience in the NBA with Chicago, Minnesota and three different stints with the Detroit Pistons. His high water marks were 47 games played in 2003-04 with Chicago and 2004-05 with Detroit. He had 14 post-season appearances with the Pistons in 2005 when they won the Eastern Conference championships. Dupree’s last NBA appearance came with Toronto during the 2010-11 season.
Dupree concluded his pro career last season with the Hapoel Jerusalem team of the Israeli Basketball Super League.
He is presently back at LSU finishing his degree work.