ESPN: High marks for LSU

• By GARY LANEY
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Nov 12, 2009 - Page: 1C

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ESPN thinks LSU’s early basketball recruiting class is the 10th best in the country.

And that’s true regardless of gender.

Trent Johnson’s men’s team signed four players Wednesday, the first day of the early signing period, from a class ranked No. 10 in the country by ESPNU before signing day.

The women signed three players from a class rated No. 10 in the nation by ESPN HoopGurlz.com.

There were no surprises for either team. The men signed top-rated players from Louisiana (Matt Derenbecker) and Mississippi (Andre Stringer) along with a shooting guard (Ralston Turner) and a forward (Jalen Courtney).

Van Chancellor’s women’s team signed two prized in-state recruits, Theresa Plaisance of Houma’s Vandebilt Catholic and Jeanne Kenney of St. Michael, and added forward Shanece McKinney of Mobile, Ala.

LSU also landed athletes in volleyball and golf. In volleyball, Fran Flory signed four players: Desiree Elliott of Cypress Woods High in suburban Houston; Shelby Pursley of Winter Springs, Fla.; Avery Striebel of Charlotte, N.C.; and Nicole Willis of Raleigh, N.C.

The women’s golf team singed Austin Ernst of Seneca, S.C.

Johnson landed his first large class, one LSU can add to. The Tigers, coming off a Southeastern Conference championship season last year, had five scholarships to give.

The players LSU landed were largely those Johnson appeared to be after from the beginning.

“These are the young men that we targeted, whom we felt would best fit our program, and we look forward to having them here,” Johnson said in an LSU news release. “That being said, this recruiting class, which is ranked 10th in the country by some polls, should be judged at the end of their careers and not at the start of their careers, and I think these players understand that.”

The four players can almost take the floor as a unit. Stringer, last year’s Mr. Basketball in Mississippi as a junior at Forest Hill High in Jackson, is a quick and strong 5-foot-9 point guard. Derenbecker, the Louisiana Gatorade Player of the Year at Metairie Park Country Day, is a 6-7 wing. Turner of Muscle Shoals, Ala., is a rangy 6-6 wing Johnson said is “arguably the best player in the state of Alabama.”

Courtney is a 6-8 forward from Jackson’s Provine High who can play inside and out.