University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Men's Basketball Welcomes First Three Signees of 2019-20 Season
5/10/2019 9:06:00 AM | Men's Basketball
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- New Southern Miss men's basketball coach Jay Ladner has hit the ground running in his first spring on the job, announcing Isaiah Jones (Phoenix, Ariz.), Hunter Dean (Mandeville, La.) and Jeffery Armstrong (Rainsville, Ala.) as part of his first signing class.
Ladner, a Southern Miss graduate and member of the 1987 NIT Championship team, was introduced on April 18 before a packed Trent Lott Center.Â
"There are three great challenges when facing a new job, especially considering the current state of affairs in college basketball," Ladner said. "First, you have to re-recruit the players on campus, second recruit the signees, and then the most difficult part: maintaining the commits since they had relationships with the previous coaches," Ladner said.
"I'm very pleased with the challenge we had in terms of being a new staff with not a lot of time to put this group together. I think it's a five-star class based on the challenges our staff faced. I'm really excited to get this group to campus."
Jones has made quite the impact in his young collegiate career, earning PacWest Freshman of the Year honors at Biola University (California) in its first year at the NCAA Division II level. He shot a team-high 59.2 percent from the field while making nine starts, averaging 8.8 points and 7.1 rebounds per game with 10 blocks.
Jones transferred to Connors State College in Oklahoma for the 2018-19 season, where as a sophomore he averaged 11.2 ppg (scoring 20-plus points in six contests) with 8.6 rpg and 28 blocks.
"He's a young man with strong ties to South Mississippi with several family members from Biloxi," Ladner said. "He is a big, strong interior player. During the interim time from when Coach Sadler left and when I was hired, his junior college coach told me that more than 35 schools had called about him. He's a high-level player, and as we got face-to-face with him, he got more comfortable with myself and the staff and recommitted. It gives us immediate help in a spot where we are thin on depth."
Dean has been a standout baseball and basketball player at Lakeshore High School, averaging 18.4 points, 12.5 rebounds and 3.1 blocks per game this season. Previously, he compiled junior marks of 12.8 points, 9.5 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per game with sophomore totals of 10.0, 10.7 and 2.5, respectively. This past weekend, he also tossed a one-hitter with nine strikeouts to help his team advance to the state semifinals.
"Hunter is a guy we have been very familiar with coming out of Mandeville," Ladner said. "I feel he was the best big man out of Mississippi and Louisiana. For us to have him and retain him, especially from previous conversations with him when I was at Southeastern Louisiana, is huge."
Armstrong was a first-team All-ASWA honoree as a senior and earned second-team accolades as a junior. He has spent this first post-graduate season at Massanutten Military Academy in Woodstock, Va., which has produced Frank Mason III (Kansas), the consensus 2017 National Player of the Year, as well as countless other top prospects across the country.
Armstrong scored 18 points with eight rebounds, five assists and five steals as Plainview High School won the 3A state title in 2018, earning All-Tournament team honors in the process.
"He could be the steal of the class," Ladner said. "He comes from an outstanding high school program and well-respected prep school. He's an athletic point guard that can help us win a lot of games over his time."
