Edgar R. Wingard, who had been the Tiger football coach since 1907, organized the school's first men's basketball team in early 1909. Wingard had learned both games at Susquehanna College in PA.

• W. J. "Red" Phillips captained the squad and played G. Other players were F J. R. Keeny, F L. R. Lesher, C B. B. Johnson, G J. A. Larcade, and sub J. Y. Sanders Jr.
• Surprisingly, none of these players was a gridder for Wingard.

• The privately-owned school had been founded in 1907 and was considered to have a "crack" team that won the state championship (whatever that meant) two years in a row.
• However, LSU won easily 35-20, the result being characterized by The New Advocate of Baton Rouge as "quite a surprise to admirers of the local team [LSU]."
• The Tigers adjusted to playing indoors after doing all their practicing outdoors. Keeny led all scorers with eight goals.

The 1909 Tigers ended with a winning record.

• They won a two-game home series over Mississippi A&M 18-12 and 14-10. (A&M became Mississippi State.)
• A 36-14 shellacking of Baton Rouge High brought the winning streak to four.
• Presumably, all these home games were played outdoors as the campus had no gymnasium.
• A two-game series in New Orleans against the YMCA produced 27-11 and 37-16 defeats on back-to-back nights.
• Wingard's team completed its maiden season with a 21-12 triumph over Dixon in a return engagement in BR.
• Final tally for Wingard's only season at the helm: 5 wins, 2 losses overall and 2-0 in conference.

• The ultimate in college basketball was the conference championship – determined either by regular season play or a post-season tournament.
• However, LSU got an opportunity to claim a "national championship" when it was invited to play in the "American Legion Bowl" in Atlantic City, NJ, against the Pittsburgh Panthers.

Atlantic City, N. J. April 13. (AP) — Louisiana State university, power in the Southeastern conference, came from far behind tonight to defeat the University of Pittsburgh, eastern conference champions, 41 to 37, in their intersectional basketball game.
The Bayou Tigers from Baton Rouge, trailing 26-17 at the half, smothered Pittsburgh in the second period with their flashy passing and scored goal after goal from the field.
Buddy Blair, Louisiana's sharpshooting forward, tallied nine field goals and two fouls to score nearly half of the Tigers' points.
Noon, Pittsburgh's lanky center, led the Panthers for scoring honors
with five field goals and two fouls. Cribbs, Panther guard, also made five goals.
The game was played in the Atlantic City auditorium before a crowd of 6,000.

That was the metaphor-filled headline in the Long Beach Independent on December 24, 1969, the day after LSU played #2 UCLA before the largest crowd to that point in Pauley Pavilion history, 12,961. The 133 points was a school record for the Bruins, breaking the 129 mark they had set just two weeks earlier against Miami of Florida.

1969-70 LSU Tigers
Front row: Tom Hess, Jeff Tribbett, Tom Henner, Rich Hickman
Middle: Kent Johnson, Bill Newton, Danny Hester
Rear: Al Sanders, Bob Lang, Pete Maravich

UCLA jumped out 9-0 in the first few minutes and raced to a 69-40 halftime lead. Determined to stop the nation's leading scorer for the past two years, John Wooden sent two defenders at Maravich every time he turned his back while dribbling, stealing the ball several times and forcing him to pass off. Pete missed 10 of his first 11 shots. His 38 points were his lowest total for the season to date. The Long Beach reporter wrote: "Maravich drew occasional oohs and aahs with his distance jumpers and wrap-around passes."

Pete generously praised the victors. "They ought to join the NBA. They'd fit right in. Honestly, everybody they have is good." Pete added, however: "I was dead tired."

Curtis Rowe and Sidney Wicks shared scoring honors for the home team with 23. Steve Patterson pulled down 17 boards. Danny Hester contributed 22 points for the Tigers.

• On December 10, LSU invaded Gainesville to play the Florida Gators on ESPN.
• After four home games, Dale Brown's squad was only 2-2 with victories over Marist (94-58) and McNeese State (91-89) sandwiched around losses to Oral Roberts (96-100) and Louisiana Tech (109-111 in OT).
• LSU was led by freshman sensation Chris Jackson from Gulfport MS, fresh off a 48-point outing against Tech.

• He thus broke Pete Maravich record for most points ever scored by an opposing player against Florida. Pete had torched the Gators for 52 in 1970.
• Jackson's point total was also the most by a freshman in NCAA history.
• Chris scored 15 in the final seven minutes to hold off a Florida rally.

Afterwards, Brown praised Jackson's "magnificent feel" for the game and admitted he was overcoaching CJ until midway through the game.

• After Chris spent several minutes passing off, Dale called a TO to tell him to fire away.
• Jackson: "I want to get everyone involved. I feel funny taking so many shots." His brief shooting hiatus may have cost him a 70-point game.

Jackson was part of one of the most highly regarded recruiting classes in the nation. However, three members – 6'11" Stanley Roberts, 6'8" Harold Boudreaux, and 6' Maurice Williamson – had to sit out the season because of NCAA's Proposition 48 which mandated a minimum ACT score adjusted for the player's GPA.

It is remarkable that Jackson played college basketball at all.

• He doesn't know who his father is and was somewhat estranged from his mother because she opposed his enrolling at LSU.
• Also, he suffered from Tourette syndrome, a neurochemical disorder that results in uncontrollable moans and cursing, arm/hand flapping, and spasmodic twitching and blinking.

Chris went on to average 30.2 for the 1988-9 season, which is still the highest ever by a freshman. So he helps give LSU a unique distinction: Tigers hold the four records for highest ppg by a freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior in NCAA history. Of course, Pistol Pete holds the other three marks since freshmen were ineligible when he arrived in Baton Rouge and players could not leave college early for the NBA.

Bob Pettit

Don Schlundt

Led by All-American junior Bob Pettit, LSU played in its first Final Four in 1953. Coach Harry Rabenhorst's Tigers usually started this five.

• F Don Belcher
• F Ned Clark
• C Bob Pettit
• G Benny McArdle
• G Norm Magee

The Tigers romped through the SEC with a 13-0 record.

• Kentucky did not field a team that season because of a point-shaving scandal.
• LSU's only regular season loss came at Tulsa on December 22, 84-58.
• The Tigers bounced back from that defeat to win the Sugar Bowl Classic, defeating Villanova 100-94 and St. Louis 70-67.

As SEC champion, LSU received a bye in the first round of the NCAA tournament. They played Lebanon Valley, which had upended Fordham 80-67, in Raleigh NC.

Big, Rough Tiger Five Halts Flying Dutchmen

• That was the headline in the Lebanon (PA) Daily News on March 14, 1953.
• "6'9" giant" Pettit scored 28 while Magee threw in 23.
• LSU led 49-43 at the half and only 63-58 after three periods. However, a 26-18 Q4 salted away the 89-76 victory.

The Holy Cross Crusaders provided the opposition in the regional final the next night.

• The Tigers forged an 18-point lead in Q3, then held off a late HC rally to prevail 81-73.
• Pettit led all scorers with 20. The Tiger D held high-scoring F Togo Palazzi to eight points.
• With LSU ahead 66-46 early in Q4, McArdle and Clark fouled out. HC capitalized to pull to 72-67 with four minutes left on Palazzi's only FG of the game. However, the Tigers added a FT and two FGs in quick succession to ice the contest.

The following week, LSU traveled to Kansas City to meet the Indiana Hoosiers in the national semifinals.

• Pettit's 29 matched the total of IU's Don Schlundt, but Bob Leonard tossed in 22 for the Big Ten champs, who led after every quarter on their way to an 80-67 victory.
• Magee scored 17 and Belcher 10 for the Tigers.

In those days, the semifinal losers played a consolation game for third place.

• Bob Houbregs, 6'8" C for Washington who would be named NCAA Player of the Year, poured in 42 to outduel Pettit by 9 in the Huskies' 86-69 triumph.
• LSU thus started a streak of Final Four losses that persists to this day – LSU has never won a game at the Final Four in either men's or women's basketball.

P.S. LSU also lost the last third-place game at the Final Four. In 1981, on the day that President Reagan was shot, Virginia won 78-74 in Philadelphia after Dale Brown's Tigers had fallen to Indiana 67-49.

P.S.S. Pettit, Belcher, Clark, and McArdle all made the LSU Team of the Decade for the 1950s in fan voting in 2009 for the centennial of Tiger basketball.

Dale Brown

• Somewhat disenchanted with coaching, Dale was contemplating working for Converse, where Dean was an executive.
• Joe encouraged Dale to get out in the field and network to make himself better known in his profession.

In January 1972, after Brown had moved to Washington State as an assistant, Carl Maddox, the LSU AD, called him.

• Maddox had decided it was time to replace Press Maravich, and Dean had recommended Dale as one of five coaches Carl should talk to.
• Maddox met with Dale for three hours and then invited him to speak to the selection committee.
• When Dale called his wife Vonnie to report on the meeting, she told him, "You should have joined the Japanese Air Force. You have a better chance of being a kamikaze pilot than getting that job."
• Dale replied, "Not this job. A kamikaze pilot has a brighter future than past coaches at LSU."
• The Tigers had had only one winning season in the last 13 – Pete Maravich's senior year – and only four in the last 18.

Several weeks later, Maddox invited Brown and his wife to Baton Rouge.

• In the meantime, Dale had been offered the head job at Washington State. He had told the WSU AD that he wouldn't accept the LSU job until he talked to him again.
• But after the second meeting with the LSU selection committee, Brown was told he had the job. He then told his AD that he and Vonnie loved it at LSU, and he was taking the job.
• The salary? $23,000 a year plus $25,000 for two full-time assistants and $2,400 for a graduate assistant.