Randy Livingston memories / questions

I only watched Randy Livingston play one game during his high school career. It was a showdown in the Cajundome between RL's Newman squad and New Iberia (NISH). NISH had the most athletic high school team I've ever seen, led by two 6'8 future D1 starters. NISH would've won the 5A championship if one of the 6'8 guys hadn't been arrested the night before the championship game. Newman's starting lineup had four guys that looked more like golfers.

RL wasn't spectacular but ended up with about 30 pts, 10 assists, and 7 boards and completely controlled the tempo. With about 15 secs left, the game was tied and Newman had the ball. RL dribbled the clock down, made his move, got triple teamed, and made a beautiful pass to the little PG in the corner for the apparent game winning shot with only a couple of secs left. NISH had no timeouts and quickly inbounded to one of the 6'8 studs for a desperation heave. RL inexplicably FOULS the guy at the buzzer. NISH made the three free throws to win by one.

I ran into an old friend (of a friend) last night that had an even better RL story. Apparently Newman had won a couple of matchups over Vandebilt during Andre Brown's illustrious career. For RL's senior year, the game was played at Nicholls with Vandebilt leading most of the game. With only a few secs left and Vandebilt up by two, a Vandebilt player missed both FTs, RL gets the rebound, dribbles a little past halfcourt, and gets off a long three to win the game at the buzzer.

 

Now for the questions. When did RL suffer his initial knee injury? From the little that I recall of his LSU career, he had two shortened seasons and seemed like he never trusted the knee.

I remember seeing him on Bourbon St. (weekend before Mardi Gras) only a few days after quitting the LSU team for good. Why didn't he come back the following year? Could the Lester Earl recruiting saga have affected his decision? Did he feel the medical treatment at LSU was lacking?

He had a few decent stints in the NBA and remember reading that he had a really good career in the CBA/D-League. During his last year playing, his coach said he would be a really outstanding coach if he chose to go in that direction. Did he decide to become a coach? What's he up to these days?

 

I remember thinking Randy was going to lead us to national championship, then his injuries really kept him from doing anything special at LSU, but.... It did give us a chance to watch some awesome basketball by a guy named Ronnie Henderson. Now with Ronnie and Randy both on the floor, that would have been special... Would Ronnie Henderson's career at LSU been different if Randy Livingston were healthy?

 

Yeah, I don't know. A healthy Randy would've been able to make others around him better so I would go with "probably". The team would've been a lot better but hard to say if that means top 10 material or just simply making the tourney as a 6-10 seed.

As far as Ronnie underachieving, that's a tough one. He had size, hops, and a pretty good three point stroke. However, he seemed disinterested at times. I think he led the SEC in scoring his final two seasons so that's a pretty big accomplishment. I remember being a little shocked that he wasn't drafted (or was it just really late?). Guessing that if he had a little better work ethic that he could've had an NBA career. Or maybe he hired Master P's group to be his agent and that closed more doors than were opened.