Morgan to receive release from LSU

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: May 14, 2008 - Page: 1C - UPDATED: 12:15 a.m.

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Rebuilding a program coming off of two disappointing seasons didn’t figure to be an easy task for new LSU men’s basketball coach Trent Johnson.

The slope became a little slippier Tuesday, but Johnson doesn’t seem to be fazed.

LSU’s 2008 recruiting class lost some major luster Tuesday when center J’Mison Morgan put an end to his on-again, off-again relationship with the Tigers.

Johnson said that he contacted Morgan’s AAU Coach, Jazzy Hartwell, on Monday to inform him that he would grant the highly touted player a release from the letter of intent he signed with the Tigers in November. Morgan is leaning heavily toward seeking a scholarship at UCLA, although Hartwell said Kansas and Alabama also remain options.

With Morgan as the centerpiece, LSU’s 2008 recruiting class was ranked 18th nationally by Rivalshoops.com and 20th by Scouthoops.com. With Morgan gone, not only does the recruiting class suffer, the Tigers will also apparently go into the 2008-09 without a strong inside presence.

If any of that disappointed Johnson, who was hired to replace the fired John Brady on April 10, he didn’t seem bothered Tuesday. Instead, he said players — and recruits — leaving when a coaching change is made is a reality of the business.

Miles Plumlee, a high-profile player Johnson recruited to Stanford from the Class of 2008, was recently released from his letter of intent with the Cardinal and signed with Duke.

“The bottom line with me will always be that I want players here who want to play for LSU,” Johnson said. “There is some closure with this decision, but no player will ever be bigger than the program. This is a kid who signed with LSU last November because he wanted to come here and now he’s got a lot of outside influences affecting him.

“But disappointment? No. Disappointment is when 13 guys who want to be here buy into a belief and a program and work hard and aren’t able to achieve what they set out to.”

Now Morgan will pursue similar goals somewhere else.

His mother, Bianca Morgan, said the 6-foot-10, 275-pound center rated as the 25th best player in the country by Rivalshoops.com and 29th by Scouthoops.com, plans to seek a scholarship at UCLA.

The Bruins have appeared in the Final Four three years in a row and have a spot open in the middle with the departure of freshman center Kevin Love to the 2008 NBA draft.

The appeal of a program with UCLA’s history and the Bruins’ renewed success was a major drawing card.