NICHOLLS’ DIGS

When taking prospective recruits on campus visits, Nicholls State University men’s basketball coach J.P. Piper used to plan the tour strategically

“We’d take them to the new cafeteria, which isn’t even that new anymore, but is still very modern,” Piper said. “We’d take them to the new, beautiful student rec center. Then we’d take them to the new apartments, which again, aren’t that new anymore, but still are modern and are a selling point.”

One thing always missing from the tour? That would be a rundown of the Colonels’ basketball facilities.

“Yeah, we’d never want to go there,” Piper said with a laugh. “We’d try and hide them unless a kid asked to go see it.”

Until now.

The Colonels completely revamped their entire basketball facility – giving the locker rooms in Stopher Gymnasium a much-needed facelift.

The project cost a little more than $500,000, and includes modernized lockers, fresh paint, big-screen TVs, a state-of-the-art sound system and other amenities. The Colonels now also have a locker room for visiting teams-something that the program never had in the past.

Piper and the Colonels players agree that it’s all a much-needed breath of fresh air into the program – something that is many years in the making.

The money came from a combination of state dollars and private donations with Sen. Norby Chabert leading the charge in generating the governmental funds.

“It’s a big, significant upgrade to our program,” Piper said. “We go places and the kids see what some of our sister institutions in the conference have. Before this, it was no comparison. We really couldn’t compete. But now, we’ve closed the gap. We still have challenges at Nicholls, but this closes the gap in a big way.”

“It’s a huge addition,” said senior guard Schane Rillieux, who has been with the Colonels since 2011. “Our locker room is completely different. Everything is changed for the better. It’s an awesome feeling. It’s a quality place. We have a place that makes you look forward to coming to practice and playing games.”

The old facility wasn’t exactly top-notch, and the Colonels knew it.

Piper said the old facility was outdated when he took over as an

assistant coach at Nicholls in 2002.

Since then, it’d only gotten worse, as next to nothing was done to revamp the amenities the team enjoyed.

Rillieux said the space was so cramped that sometimes players had to share lockers. Senior guard T.J. Carpenter said he’d seen “dozens” of high schools who had better facilities, comparing the Colonels setup to something you’d see at a small-town YMCA.

“What we had before was so different compared to other places,” Carpenter said. “It was like an old recreation center locker room before. Right now, we have it good. But before, it was a struggle.”

Piper said Nicholls athletic officials had been trying for several years to revamp the facilities, but could never find the money to make things work.

That changed in 2014 when the Colonels announced that the project was officially going to take place.

It took more than a year to complete, but the project featured a new entrance, renovated offices for coaches, meeting rooms, a brand-new lobby, and greatly enhanced space for the players.

Rillieux said his favorite thing about the new place is the sound system, which allows players to jam out before practice.

Piper and Carpenter like the large TVs, which create a family-like feel and boost team morale.

“They thought about everything,” Rillieux said. “We used to all have to share a lot of stuff, but now, every player has their own space. We all have our own outlets to charge our phones during practice. We used to listen to music on an old boom box from the 1990s. Now, we have surround sound. It just makes everything better.”

And Piper and the Colonels think it may also attract better players to Thibodaux now that it’s a finished product.

Piper talked at length about modern recruiting, touting that little things like facilities, locker rooms and uniform combinations go a long way when pitching a program to a player.

The coach said that the new locker room doesn’t solve every problem the team has, but it does go a long way in helping make Nicholls more competitive in attracting talent.

“If you like the coaches at School A and also at School B, too, but School A has a fantastic locker room and School B doesn’t, then you’re obviously more likely to choose School A when making your decision,” Piper said. “It’s like anything else. If you’re shopping for a car, and you like two, but one is fully loaded and the other isn’t, you’re more likely to choose the one that’s fully loaded if the price is the same.”

Rillieux and Carpenter agreed.

They both said that they’d have committed to Nicholls sooner than they did out of high school if the program had its current locker room in the past.

“Most definitely,” Carpenter said. “I’d have been here in a heartbeat. It would have made my decision much easier.”

“It would have had a big influence on me,” Rillieux added. “It would have made me very excited. It’s going to make other high school players excited, too. It’ll help our team long-term.”

Looks like the cafeteria is no longer the go-to spot for the J.P. Piper campus tour.

These days, the veteran coach has something worthy of showing off much closer to home.

‘We go places and the kids see what some of our sister institutions in the conference have. Before this, it was no comparision. Now we’ve closed the gap.’

J.P. Piper

Nicholls State University men’s basketball coach on locker room upgrade

Nicholls State University’s new locker room features more space, including lockers for each player and a seating area to watch film. The upgraded facility opened a few weeks ago.

MISTY MCELROY | NICHOLLS

One of the most popular areas in Nicholls’ new basketball locker room Is the lobby and office spaces, both of which were completely redone. Colonels coach J.P. Piper said that the new space Is a recruiting tool that he and his assistant coaches can use to attract new players Into the program.

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