It’s still all happening behind the scenes, but the excitement behind UL’s hiring of Quannas White as its new men’s basketball coach hits the court for the first time Monday … sort of.

The eight-week summer session begins Monday with conditioning and individual drills, before team workouts begin on Thursday.

“These weeks are going to be a lot of teaching, but also player development,” White said. “These individuals (workouts) starting on Monday are extremely important, as well as the practices we’ll have later on in the week.”

Since filling out his first roster for the Ragin’ Cajuns, the next stage is the coaching staff teaching the new system and developing the unyielding culture White has professed since his hiring.

“Implementing the foundation of your system – a lot of teaching will go on,” White said. “Everyone is new, even the returners because I’m a new coach.

“These guys need to have a clear understanding of what it is I expect and then implementing the system from a defensive standpoint and what we’re doing offensively.”

On no issue is the staff’s philosophy more clear than on its requirement to be a leader. While many issues won’t really be settled until the fall, leadership starts Monday in White’s mind.

“1000% – that starts from day one,” White exclaimed. “Leadership is consistency. You’ll see that in these first four weeks, but it needs to continue once get break and guys come back. Even after these eight weeks, I’ll still need to see more.

“Leadership is something that’s consistent. It’s not, ‘When I feel like, I want to do that.’ No, that’s not leadership. That guy there needs to follow a leader.”

A point guard by trade, White will likely start with that position to be the team’s leaders.

“All of these guys are different,” White explained. “We’ve got a first-year head coach and a bunch of new guys and they haven’t played for me yet. So time will tell on a lot of those things.

“But I’ve got a good feel of what a leader looks like and who needs to be an extension of me. Normally, that’s the point guard, right? We’ve got a couple guys that I believe could potentially be that, but again, time will tell.”

The top two candidates to earn the point guard spot are Oklahoma State transfer Jamyron Keller and high school signee Michael Collins.

The 6-foot-3, 210-pounder from Ellison, Texas played 25 games as a freshman and 35 games with 26 starts as a sophomore with the Cowboys.

Keller averaged 6.5 points, 2.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 19.6 minutes in his first season. Last year, Keller averaged 5.2 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 20.3 minutes a game.

He shot 27.8% from 3-point land and 78.9% at the line as a freshman and 32.4% behind the arc and 70% at the line this past season.

Collins is a 6-1 guard from Pearland, Texas.

“Being a freshman, he’s young, but he’s had great experience playing under coach David (President) out there at Shadow Creek, who played the position as well,” White said of Collins. “So he’s been under his tutelage. And he’s huge reason we think the future is bright for him.”

Karris Bilal, a 6-2 transfer from Vanderbilt, has some point guard skills as well but was recruited more as a scoring combo guard.

While teaching the new players is high on White’s list, he’s confident his staff has made accurate assessments of the new roster.

Initially, it appeared White would have 15 scholarship players on that first roster, but high school pledges Daijon Leatherman and Caleb Sanders backed out of their commitments.

As it stands, 13 scholarship players and potentially as many as four walk-ons will begin summer camp Monday.

“I think you have to make sure you do a good job in recruiting,” White said. “It doesn’t matter the … we do a really good job of evaluating. I’ve done a great job of evaluating my entire college coaching career and even when I did AAU. When you recruit these guys and sign them, you think these guys are capable of accomplishing what you think … I believe it.”

The scholarship group begins with three returnees in Zeke Cook, Jeremiah Evans and Kyran Ratliff, and then two incoming freshman in Collins and highly touted 6-7 wing Joshua Lewis of Tampa, Florida.

The bulk of the roster, though, is transfer portal newcomers: Keller, Bilal, 6-foot-9 Todd Jones from Portland, 6-8 Dariyus Woodson from North Dakota, 6-3 shooter De’Vion Lavergne from Purdue-Fort Wayne, 6-5 wing Dorian Finister from Sam Houston, 6-8 forward Sean Elkinton from Louisiana Tech and 6-5 guard Jaxon Olvera of Pepperdine.

“We made sure that we got the right type of guys in there who are talented and that are about the team,” White said. “Now it’s just about us getting these guys to play for each other.”

White is also convinced his staff has assembled a good combination of ball handling, shooting, rebounding and athleticism.

“We’ve got some experienced guys who have kind of been through the trenches,” White said. “We just have to make sure that we’re teaching these guys and putting them in the right positions and then development, I’m big on that.

“A bulk of the summer will be taking a deep dive into developing these guys and honing in on their skills.”