By By Tony Krausz / assistant sports editor
March 18, 2004
STARKVILLE At the start of this season, Mississippi State basketball coach Rick Stansbury had an inkling that he would have one of the most dominant front courts in college basketball.
The Bulldogs' front court met the sixth-year head coach's expectations, but it was with different names than he expected.
Stansbury, who is in his 14th season with the MSU program, expected Mario Austin and freshman Travis Outlaw to be the players accounting for the Bulldogs' Southeastern Conference-best 40.9 rebounds per game this season.
MSU never got to find out how good the team could have been with Austin and Outlaw on the front line. Austin departed for the NBA following his senior year, and Outlaw, a standout from Starkville High School, went to the NBA and never came on campus.
Enter Lawrence Roberts.
A refugee from the soap-opera summer that plagued Baylor in which a player was killed, another player was charged with the murder and a coach was fired in disgrace.
Roberts, a two-time All-Big 12 selection, arrived in Starkville in August after the NCAA ruled that players could transfer from Baylor without having to sit out a year.
Little was known about the 6-foot-9 Houston native when he arrived on MSU's campus, and the team made sure Roberts was kept away from the media's scrutiny regarding the situation he escaped from at Baylor.
Roberts led Baylor in scoring and rebounding in his two seasons with the Bears. But Stansbury knew he had something more than just a guy who could put up big numbers.
During a visit, the coach and player shared a quiet moment in the upper deck of Humphrey Coliseum, and Roberts expressed what he wanted out of the team he transferred to.
Roberts didn' t need a philosophical view from Stansbury to choose MSU. Instead, he just followed the same reasoning he always had when picking a team to play for.
And Roberts fit perfectly into MSU's system.
He averaged a double-double for the season 17 points and 10.4 rebounds per game and he was the runaway choice as the SEC Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year.
While it is hard to pick one game in which Roberts showed his true value to the Bulldogs, MSU's two games against Vanderbilt this season, a win and a loss, are good indicators of his worth.
In the Bulldogs' 72-69 win over the Commodores in the regular season, Roberts scored 18 points and grabbed 14 rebounds, with six rebounds on the offensive end of the floor.
While the forward's performance helped MSU defeat Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn., Roberts' true value may have come to light in the Bulldogs' overtime loss to the Commodores in the SEC Tournament.
Roberts sprained his right ankle tumbling out of bounds with 14 minutes left in regulation. He returned to the game 3 1/2 minutes later, but the forward was clearly not as effective normal.
Roberts grabbed just three rebounds in the closing minutes of the game and none on the offensive end.
Stansbury said Roberts will play in the No. 2-seeded Bulldogs' first round game in the NCAA tournament against No. 15-seed Monmouth at 6:10 p.m. Friday in Orlando, Fla., but the team isn't sure how much the forward's ankle will have healed by game time.
The only thing that is certain is that Roberts will play with every thing he has, as the Bulldogs look to capture the national title.