KK Babin deserves to go out with Southland Title

It’s not at all a secret, so I’m not afraid to share this fact with my viewing audience at home: I am a completely biased homer when it comes to LSU sports.

I own it. I admit it. I am a complete meathead when it comes to Tigers’ athletics. I see things that aren’t really there to feed my opinion, and I don’t like anything that threatens LSU’s ability to win a game or a championship.

That’s simply the way that life is lived as a graduate of the school. I can’t help it. It’s in my DNA now.

But when it comes to Nicholls’ sports, I’ve never been able to get that same level of attachment. Maybe because of the size of the school, maybe it’s because I simply haven’t ever been within their inner circle like I have with LSU. But whatever it is, I’ve always been able to very easily keep my neutrality and objectivity intact while working with the Colonels’ sporting programs.

Until now. As of today, March 12, 2014, I am hereby announcing that I will put my journalistic integrity to the side as I rally around the red and white. I am here to admit that I am going to be a huge Nicholls women’s basketball homer for the next few days as the Colonels push toward the Southland Conference Tournament.

The reason is because I want to see senior guard KK Babin cap her epic career with a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Simply put – she deserves it! More than any other athlete that I have ever covered in my four-plus years with this paper, Babin deserves to go out on top.

I first got back into this area in Dec. 2009 after a four-year stay at LSU. Naturally with it being December, some of my first stories at this paper were covering the Colonels’ basketball teams.

The men were OK to cover at that time. They won some, they lost some. They were always competitive – especially at home. They made things interesting, and interesting is about the best thing that any 23-year-old rookie sports writer can ask for.

The women’s team? They were a completely different story. Put in the nicest terms that I could think of – they were just flat awful.

When coach DoBee Plaisance took over the Colonels’ program in 2008, the team was not exactly on firm footing.

Prior to Plaisance’s arrival, the Colonels simply lacked talent … and a mindset … and a vision that success is possible if everyone got on board and decided to push forward in the same direction.

Plaisance is a great leader and a truly remarkable person off the floor. She has long been one of my favorite people to interview, because her personality is contagious, and she truly is a great salesperson for the Colonels’ program.

But she needed players to buy her sales pitch or this entire movement she was trying to initiate would never happen.

Then along came KK Babin, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In the Colonels’ 2010 recruiting class, Plaisance plucked Babin from St. Michael the Archangel – a home run signing that marked the official turnaround in the Colonels’ comeback story. Babin’s prestige was rich. She was a two-time State Champion with the Warriors, sinking buzzer beaters in each game to seal the win.

She had offers to go to countless programs throughout the South. But she chose Plaisance and chose Nicholls because she wanted to pave her own path and help create her own legacy.

Simply put, she wanted to go somewhere and have a chance at being a real difference maker.

She has. Since enrolling in Thibodaux, the Colonels have risen from the doldrums and have become a perennial threat to win 20 games each season. What makes it fun for me is the fact that Babin has done it the old fashioned way – blood, sweat, tears and heart.

When someone looks at Gonzales native Katelyn Marie Babin, it’s easy to see that she doesn’t look like a program-changing collegiate basketball player. In fact, she looks much more like a kid that you’d see waitressing at a nearby steak joint in downtown Thibodaux or working as a student intern at an office job somewhere around town.

Babin is an attractive young lady, but she’s not physically imposing. Heck, she stands just 5-feet, 4-inches tall.

I’ve talked to the senior point guard numerous times. I don’t even know if she is as tall as she’s listed. Maybe she is, but if so, it’s not a centimeter more than 5-feet, 4-inches.

But when on the basketball floor, Babin transforms from sweet little Katelyn into KK Babin – the point guard that every coach around the country would love to have within his/her locker room.

Babin isn’t great at any particular skillset on the floor. She’s above-average all-around. But what makes her a must-have player is her tenacity.

KK Babin is intense on the basketball floor. She’s ruthless. She is aggressive. She genuinely cares about the game, the program and her teammates. She is a leader – born and bred.

Her talent level gave the Colonels credibility at a time when the team so-desperately needed it. Since Babin’s signing, Plaisance has done a masterful job to stock the cupboard to build a roster capable of competing with anyone within the Southland Conference and across the rest of the college basketball landscape.

Babin is the type of person that is cut from the right cloth. She was born and raised by Dianne and Blane Babin. Her parents are always visible within Stopher Gymnasium – they are two of the most likeable people that I’ve met in my time covering local sports.

With that family support at her side, Babin has bought into Plaisance’s vision and has helped create that same, family-like feel within Nicholls’ team.

The Colonels’ players genuinely like one another and spend a ton of time together off the floor. They are a united group of players – a squad that is trending upward and inches closer and closer to its goal each and every season.

And I sincerely hope that this season is the year that Nicholls puts it all together and cuts down the nets in Katy, Texas to punch a spot into the NCAA Tournament.

That would be a story that would warm my heart and fill me with joy.

I’ve watched these young ladies build this thing from the ground-up.

And Babin deserves to be there when it all reaches its climax, for without her decision to come to Nicholls, none of this would be happening.

So give me a red shirt with white trim. I’m going to be a Nicholls fan for the next few days. I want to see these ladies pull this thing off.