Kerry Rupp drops two

Thanks to a tip, we discovered a Shreveport Times article about LT Coach Kerry Rupp dismissing two players from his squad, one of whom was expected to be a starter.

Tech dismisses Nebraska transfer
Shreveport Times
September 29, 2008

RUSTON -- Louisiana Tech basketball coach Kerry Rupp announced Monday afternoon that senior JC Clark and Nebraska transfer Jamel White have been dismissed from the team for a violation of team rules...

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Here's what baffles us but the answer seems simply to be human nature.

JC Clark and his teammates endured a very rough season last year due to the Bulldogs being limited in players, experience and talent. The best of the Techers were sitting out the season after transferring in from other D-1 schools. This was Clark's junior season and 2008-2009 promised to be a much, much better one in Ruston. So Clark made it through a tough season, had great possibilities on the horizon and then blew it.

The same goes for Jamel White. Getting through a sit-out-due-to-transfer year is never easy but he made it. Now, with the strong possibility of being the starting point for LT, he messes up big time and is now looking for a new home.

Clark won't be missed all that much but White will -- at least on the court.

Parsing The WAC --- by Chris Murray

Hey, we've actually been giving it some thought that we should be including Chris Murray's name in the title of this blog since he is supplying so much of the 'updates' we post here.

We are still planning on doing an early WAC preview of each team as soon as things slow down with our other writing.

But in the meantime...Chris offers his take on the latest LA TECH happenings in his most recent column:

Changes aplenty at one WAC basketball school
Chris Murray
Reno Gazette-Journal
May 27, 2008

The Louisiana Tech basketball team was horrible last season. Some of that was design. The Techsters were 6-24 overall and a WAC-worst 3-13 in league under first-year coach Kerry Rupp. You never want to go through a season like that, but all that pain might start paying off next season. However, it won't come without a little controversy.

Rupp decided to build Louisiana Tech with the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons in mind. He lured three transfers from BCS schools in Jamel White of Nebraska, Magnum Rolle of LSU and Kenny Cooper of Oklahoma State. All three become eligible this season and will have at least two years of eligibility left. The coach also nabbed a pair of prep stars from Canada before last season in four-star recruit Olu Ashaolu and three-star recruit D.J. Wright. Both were redshirted (and Wright failed to academically qualify, which forced a transfer to Salt Lake Community College. He said he will spend two years at SLCC and return to Louisiana Tech).

The next step was adding this season's recruiting class, which included JC transfer David Jackson, who averaged 7.2 points per game as a freshman at Idaho in 2006-07 before transferring to Mesa Community College and then La. Tech. The five-player class includes another JC transfer in Jamel Guyton and prep products Brandon Gibson, Josh Brown and Holton Hunsaker, who won't join the team until the 2010-11 season after going on a Mormon mission to Fiji...

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Better late than never -- good article about LA TECH

We've been a bit negligent on checking our email so apologies for that. Here's an article that was brought to our attention by Chris d'A and we thank him for that. Look for the Bulldogs to certainly be in the first division in the WAC next year and likely to make a run for the top spot considering all the graduating seniors elsewhere:

In the doghouse: Thin Tech Bulldogs basketball team growing toward next season
Teddy Allen
teddy@gannett.com
January 24, 2008

RUSTON — Some people might look at Louisiana Tech's 3-13 record in men's basketball, then look at the coaching staff and find it easy to understand why three of the four don't have any hair.

Bald as basketballs.

But they didn't pull their hair out. Truth is, the coaches just like their hair short. Once a week assistant Rennie Bailey, a mainstay on the Tech NCAA Tournament teams of the early 1980s, tells basketball secretary Rebecca Pesnell he's going to get a haircut as he walks out the door, rubbing nothing but fuzz on the top of his head.

"He's back in less than an hour," she said, "and you can't tell any difference."

Short can be good when it comes to hair.

But it's not so good when it comes to basketball teams. And Tech is short — short on height, on experience, on depth, and on wins. Tech's nine-player team is looking to go up, the only direction available at 0-4 in the WAC...

Go here for the remainder.