NCAA Basketball: 10 best players from state of Louisiana of last decade

1. Jared Butler – Baylor

Earlier in the article, we touched on Vital and the Baylor championship, but Butler was even more vital to the program’s surge. A 6’3 guard from Reserve, he was a fringe Top 100 prospect who found his way to the Bears in 2018, spending the next three years starring in the Big 12. He worked his way into the starting lineup as a freshman and never looked back.

Butler had a career-high 31-point effort in a loss at Kansas as a freshman, one of his big steps forward as a contributor on this team. He averaged at least 16 points per game as both a sophomore and junior, though clearly, it’s his junior season that stands out. He had a number of standouts games, including another 30-point outing against Kansas, and helped lead Baylor to the national championship. In fact, he scored 22 points in the championship game over Gonzaga.

For that historic junior season, Butler was a First Team All-American, All-Big 12 First Team, Big 12 All-Defense Team, and was named the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player for his role down the stretch. He led the conference in steals and 3-point field goal percentage that season as well, just putting together an all-around fantastic season for the Bears. He became a second-round draft pick by the Utah Jazz last year and hopes to continue taking that next step at the pro level.

At long last, our dive into the best college basketball players of the last decade from the state of Louisiana is complete; did we nail the list or is there somebody out of place?