Gathers on recruitment: LSU wasn’t aggressive enough

Riverside Academy star Ricardo Gathers, who in July committed to St. John’s over LSU and others, re-opened his recruitment last fall with Louisiana’s flagship basketball program in mind.

“My main reason for decommitting was to give LSU a shot,” Gathers said Tuesday, a day after committing to Baylor. “I feel like they wasted my time.”

Gathers, considered the top prospect to come out of the state in four years, said he chose Baylor for a number of reasons.

One is that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of Tweety Carter, who starred at Reserve Christian— where Gathers began his prep career — before playing guard at Baylor from 2006-10.

Another was that he thought he could play early. Another was that he felt like he could compete for a national championship.

Most important, Gathers said, is he felt Baylor really wanted him.

Gathers commended LSU assistant Brent Scott for his recruitment of him and said the two built a wonderful relationship over four years. But he had less flattering things to say about Scott’s boss.

“I just felt like coach (Trent) Johnson didn’t put forth a great enough effort to get me,” Gathers said. “He kind of sent most of the assistant coaches on me like Brent Scott. I had to realize I wasn’t going to be playing for Brent Scott; I was going to be playing for coach Johnson. The simple fact I had only seen coach Johnson at one of my games, and that was the Scotlandville game this year. That doesn’t even really count because that was in Baton Rouge.”

Asked why he thinks Johnson did not push harder for him, Gathers said, “Probably because he felt secure with me and coach Brent Scott’s relationship. He probably felt like he had a legitimate shot. But that really wasn’t the case, as you can see.”

College coaches are limited in what they can say publicly about prospective student-athletes, but Johnson said the Tigers always had Gathers in their sights.

“Do you honestly think any coach in the country has seen Ricardo Gathers play more than I have?” he said.

Gathers won Louisiana’s Mr. Basketball award as a junior, averaging 20.7 points, 16.2 rebounds and 3.9 blocked shots. He led Riverside to its second straight Class 2A championship after leading now-defunct Reserve Christian to the Class C crown as a freshman.

This year, Riverside is 25-6 and ranked third in the 2A state poll.
ESPN lists Gathers, 6-foot-7, 240 pounds, as the nation’s No. 35 prospect. Rivals lists him at No. 37.

Former LSU great Ricky Blanton, now a color analyst for LSU basketball radio broadcasts, said it was no secret how badly Johnson and his staff wanted the power forward from Reserve.

He recalled seeing Gathers at several home games the past two years.

“I’m very comfortable saying he was a priority from the head coach all the way through the staff,” Blanton said. “I think anybody who has followed LSU in their recruiting knows that.”

LSU hoped to add Gathers in a 2012 recruiting class that features John Curtis wing Malik Morgan, whose Patriots compete against Gathers and Riverside in the same 2A district.

Morgan is ranked by Rivals as the nation’s No. 75 prospect.

“I would have loved to see Ricardo go to LSU,” said Riverside coach Tim Byrd, a former LSU quarterback. “If he wasn’t going to go to LSU, then I’m happy with his decision to go to Baylor. But I would have liked to have seen him be at LSU because I’d have liked to see him play.”

The addition of Gathers bumped Baylor’s class to No. 4 in the ESPN team rankings.

Gathers made an official visit to Baylor late last month. He can sign with the Bears on April 11, the first day of college basketball’s regular signing period.

“Baylor was a familiar situation for me since Tweety went there and I had been up there multiple times whenever he played,” Gathers said. “The coaching staff made me feel like I was a main priority, and with the signing class they have coming in, we have a really good chance of being a potential national champion. That was one of the biggest things for me.”