Recruiting in Mississippi even tougher with Eustachy

By By Stan Torgerson / sports columnist
March 30, 2004
If you think Rod Barnes has had trouble recruiting at Ole Miss before, think about how hard it's going to be in the future.
Larry Eustachy has taken over at Southern Mississippi, and this guy is no new kid on the recruiting block with wet spaces behind his ears.
Eustachy has been there and done that. No, he doesn't have what Ole Miss has to sell membership in the prestigous Southeastern Conference, frequent television access, millions of dollars in financial support from what is the richest league in the country. Even if Ole Miss' physical plant of a gym is not grade A, it's better than the one at Southern Miss.
But Eustachy's record shows the guy learned in the past how to sell chicken feathers for chicken salad and, as a result, competition for Mississippi's basketball talent just became even fiercer than it has been.
Mississippi State has outrecruited both the Golden Eagles and the Rebels for years. Maybe they've just worked harder at it. They've certainly worked better. That's not going to be true with Eustachy around. He's got something to prove a career to resurrect. I have no doubt that Rick Stansbury knows it. I suspect Barnes does too. With the players the Bulldogs have already signed, that leaves Southern and Ole Miss to scrap over what remains in our state.
Winning in his conference next year should be easier for Eustachy than this past season with several Conference USA teams moving to other leagues. It won't be for Ole Miss, however, with the talent they have coming back. Their league won't be any easier, and unless Barnes finds some immediate help, his players won't be any better.
So it comes down to this. The first person Barnes needs to bring to Ole Miss is an assistant coach who can sell refrigerators to eskimoes. It doesn't matter if he's a lousy coach. Rod needs a great salesman worse than he needs someone who just knows Xs and Os.
Take out Aaron Harper and Justin Reed, who graduate this year, and there remains exactly one kid from Mississippi on the Ole Miss squad. He is a hometown boy, Kendrick Fox of Oxford. He'll give the team a good effort, but he's not a great talent. Mississippi State has six from Mississippi. Alabama has seven from their state. Arkansas lists seven players from their own backyard. Nine players at LSU last year were home state kids. Ole Miss has one. None from South Mississippi. None from East Mississippi. None from the North or the West or from Jackson, a hotbed of basketball.
This is a good year for talent in the state. The All-State squad named last Sunday showed 10 players who have size and ability. Not one of them indicated the Rebels were even in their thoughts. State had three. USM had one. Ole Miss zero. With only one in-state player on next year's squad, it indicates a famine that's lasted for at least the last three years. And, frankly, that's a terrible record.
Ole Miss as a school has much to offer. Barnes is in desperate need of someone who can sell it. He said as much when he left for the NCAA Tournament. He conceded he was looking for an assistant with a strong recruiting background. For his future's sake, let's hope he finds one.
The other side of that coin is women's basketball. When Carol Ross took over as the Lady Rebels' coach, she first recruited one of Mississippi's greatest former players as an assistant, her friend Peggy Gillom. They took over too late to do much recruiting, but took what they found and managed to have a good year, good enough to earn an NCAA Tournament invitation.
But this coming year is a different story. The state's Miss Basketball is coming aboard, Dee Forrest from Louisville. Forrest, a 6-footer, averaged 34.8 points per game this year and shot 75.2 percent from the field. Forrest is a talent.
Then Ross also convinced two second-team All-Staters to wear the red and blue Lindsay Roy from Delta Academy, a 5-9 guard with a 27.2 points per game average, and Ratassia Worsham, a 5-10 talented guard from Wayne County who averaged 18.4 points and who helped take her team to the Class 4A state semifinals.
Put these three newcomers with the returning talent in 2004, and the Lady Rebs will be very, very competitive. Ross may pick up one or two more top players but for the moment she has done well. Incidentally, that gives the Lady Rebels seven home-state players on next year's squad.
If Ole Miss can do so well in women's basketball, so well in football, so well in baseball and other sports, why can't it do equally well in men's basketball? If there's an answer to that, Rebels men's basketball needs to find it. Stansbury and Eustachy are tough competition.