Carmouche joins LSU basketball team

BATON ROUGE - LSU men's basketball coach Johnny Jones announced on Saturday that Louisiana native Charles Carmouche has enrolled in school and will join the LSU men's basketball team for the 2012-13 season.

The 6-3, 183-pound Carmouche, who played two years at the University of New Orleans, was at the University of Memphis the last two years, but only played seven games during the 2011-12 season and was granted an injury redshirt year by the NCAA. He enters LSU after completing his degree requirements at Memphis under the NCAA graduation-transfer rule that allows him to play his fourth and final season of eligibility at another D1 school without sitting out a season.

Carmouche is a native of New Orleans, La., who prepped at McMain High School. He played the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons at UNO before the school announced its intention at that time to leave Division I. He transferred to Memphis where he graduated in May in interdisciplinary studies.

"We're excited to have Charles as part of our LSU basketball program," said Coach Jones on Saturday. "He has an ability to defend and a knack for scoring. With his experience, Charles brings a leadership and a presence to our team that we need heading into the start of preseason workouts."

In all at the two schools, Carmouche played in 92 games with 75 starts, averaging 7.4 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.7 assists a contest. His best year was the 2009-10 season at UNO when he averaged 12.6 points and 4.8 rebounds, starting 28-of-29 games. He ranked in the top 20 in both scoring and rebounds in the Sun Belt Conference that season.

This past year in seven games, he averaged 6.3 points and 2.6 rebounds at Memphis.

In high school at McMain, was the district MVP as a senior and was also named to 3A All-State squad and All-Metro team, averaging 21 points per game as a senior in 2007. He spent two years at McMain after spending sophomore year at Westside High School in Houston, Texas, following Hurricane Katrina. He prepped at St. Augustine as a freshman.