Iowa State 6-11 Center Transfers To LSU

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

ISU 6-11 Center Transfers To LSU

By GARY LANEY
Advocate sportswriter

When men’s basketball prospect Justin Hamilton visited LSU over the weekend, he was influenced the most not by one of the players who saw playing time for the Tigers last season, but by one who never saw a minute of action.

Malcolm White, the big man who sat out last season after transferring from Ole Miss, made an impression on Hamilton, a 6-foot-11, 255-pound big man who announced Monday he plans to transfer to LSU from Iowa State, where he started as a sophomore in 2009-10.

“I hit it off with (White), he’s a great guy,” said the Alpine, Utah, native, who has been looking for a new school since he announced he was leaving just after the end of the season. “They were on spring break, but he came back to talk to me. He was in a similar situation (in 2010) to what I’ll be in, and I liked what he had to say.”

Like White last season, Hamilton will have to sit out as a transfer next season after he started 31 Cyclones games and averaged 6.4 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1.1 block per game.

At season’s end, he said he wanted to transfer to be closer to home. As it turned out, he didn’t find a good fit close to Utah and instead chose between two schools — LSU and Virginia — coached by men he already knew because of their strong Western ties.

Hamilton was familiar with LSU’s Trent Johnson from Johnson’s days as head coach at Stanford. Virginia’s Tony Bennett was Washington State’s head coach when Hamilton was a three-star recruit, according to Rivals.com, coming out of high school.

He said he picked LSU “just because what I see the LSU program doing. Really, the coaches, the whole staff, it just feels like the right place.”

The addition of Hamilton gives LSU six players in its signing class, and Hamilton will be the first who is not a high school recruit. Four prep players — guards Andre Stringer, Ralston Turner and Matt Derenbecker and forward Jalen Courtey — signed in the early period. LSU also has a commitment from point guard K.C. Ross-Miller of Dallas, Texas for the regular signing period which starts Wednesday.

Ross-Miller’s father said Monday his son may sign Wednesday if they follow through on tentative plans to visit Baton Rouge. Otherwise, he said his son will sign Thursday during a trip to New Orleans.

The addition of Hamilton leaves questions about LSU’s numbers. With Hamilton slated to be on scholarship next year, if nothing else changes, LSU will have 14 scholarship players, one more than the NCAA limit.

Bo Spencer, who was LSU’s second-leading scorer in 2010 and would be the only senior on next year’s roster, was placed under indefinite suspension by Johnson after the season for academic reasons.

LSU was also in the mix for a junior college guard, Sherrard Brantley of Northwest Florida, Community College, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported April 2 he committed to Georgia instead.