LSU basketball awards scholarship to walk-on Brandon Eddlestone

BATON ROUGE – LSU men’s basketball coach Johnny Jones for the second time this year has rewarded loyalty and hard work by granting walk-on Brandon Eddlestonea scholarship for the 2016-17 men’s basketball season.

It was earlier this year prior to the spring semester that Jones gave a scholarship to now graduated walk-onHenry Shortess.

Eddlestone is in his fourth season with the LSU program and came to Baton Rouge after prepping at Northshore High School in Slidell, lettering four years under Coach Joey Tolis. He was named first team All-District and District MVP and was an All-State Honorable Mention selection by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. He was a member of the All-New Orleans Area Boys Large School prep team during his time at Northshore as selected by NOLA.com/Times-Picayune.

The scholarship was awarded in a summer phone call to Eddlestone by Coach Jones and the coaching staff.

“It’s hard to put into words the emotions that I felt when I found out,” Eddlestone said. “Coach Jones gave me a call with all of the coaches in the room and put me on speaker (phone). I didn’t even know what to say, I was speechless. The only way to put it is that it’s a dream come true. To be able to represent such a prestigious and historical university for four years has been an absolute dream of mine since I was young.”

Eddlestone, who plans to graduate in the spring of 2017, is majoring in accounting and hopes to pursue a Master’s of Science in Analytics. He has played in 17 games over his first three years along with three games in the summer 2015 tour of Australia.

“We filled our 13-man scholarship roster for this season with the addition of Brandon Eddlestone, a walk-on for the last three years,” said Coach Jones. “He’s worked extremely hard. He’s played a very important role for our team the last three years and was part of LSU teams that went to the NIT and NCAA Tournament. He is most deserving of this honor.”

Two Walk-Ons Added

Coach Jones also announced the addition of two more walk-ons to the Tiger roster in Baton Rouge high school players Reed Vial, a 6-3 redshirt sophomore who played at Parkview Baptist; and, freshman Marshall Graves, who prepped at University High.

Vial played for four years as shooting guard for Parkview Baptist and Coach Don Green. The team won the District title in 2012 and in 2013 advanced to the Top 28 semifinals. He was a two-time All-District selection and a member of The Advocate’s All-Metro team. He averaged 16 points, four assists and five rebounds as a junior and 20 points, five assists and seven rebounds as a senior.

Graves, also a 6-3 guard, originally from Ponchatoula, was part of the run of three state championship in 2014, ’15 and ’16 at U-High along with LSU teammate Skylar Mays (’14, ’15) and Wayde Sims (’14, ’15, ’16) under Coach Joe Spencer. Graves set a season school record in 2016 for free throw percentage at 91.4 percent and was named honorable mention all-state Class AAA by the state sports writers.

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