BATON ROUGE – Sophomore guard Skylar Mays was back on the court for conditioning with his Tiger team Monday afternoon in the basketball practice facility.
But over the weekend, Mays, and Jaelyn Richard-Harris of the LSU women’s basketball team were at Southeastern Conference headquarters in Birmingham for the annual meeting of the SEC Men’s and Women’s Basketball Leadership Councils.
In separate meetings, the players had the chance to not only interact with league officials like Commissioner Greg Sankey, but also the chance to interact with each other and learn they were all members of the basketball fraternity representing the Southeastern Conference.
For Mays, the chance to be involved as LSU’s representative was one he wasn’t going to pass on.
“I never take opportunities like that for granted,” he said Monday. “It’s the opportunity to get a perspective of another athlete that is grinding away day-to-day in your sport just like you are.”
Mays and representatives of the 14 men’s teams met with former ESPN College Basketball analyst Andy Katz and one of the nation’s top basketball officials, Anthony Jordan.
“I really enjoyed myself,” Mays said late Monday. “We got to meet with Andy Katz and Anthony Jordan and we got to receive a little in sight as to how they approach games from both a media side and a referee’s side.”
The representatives also saw the replay central location in the SEC headquarters that will assist with instant replay reviews during the upcoming SEC basketball season.
“They told us that they would be using that replay center to help with reviews and calls during our basketball season so that’s pretty cool,” the Baton Rouge native said.
Katz, who has interviewed and covered thousands of basketball games as both a broadcaster and a writer, gave the players some good information about when they are involved with local and national media.
“(Katz) just really wanted us to understand that we can use the media to promote ourselves,” Mays said. “He was really pushing for us not to be afraid to expose the side of ourselves outside of the basketball court, including things that the average fan might not know about.”
LSU will open the 2017-18 season on Nov. 10 against Alcorn State at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Ticket information can be found at LSUTix.net.