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LSU Basketball

New environment as Will Wade gets ready for his second LSU season

September 24, 2018
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Will Wade’s first season as LSU basketball coach was certainly a success.

The Tigers went from two Southeastern Conference victories in coach Johnny Jones’ last season to eight victories in Wade’s first campaign. LSU won 18 games and reached the second round of the NIT.

The Tigers have the makings of a top-25 team for the upcoming season. Three starters are back – point guard Tremont Waters and wings Skylar Mays and Daryl Edwards. Then, Wade brought in a top-five recruiting class – headed by post player Naz Reid, wing Emmitt Williams and point guard Ja’vonte Smart.

LSU has the No. 5-ranked football team in the country, but there is interest about Wade’s basketball team for 2018-19.

“The biggest accomplishment in our first year is that people care (about LSU basketball),” said Wade, whose team begins practice later this week. “People will be upset when we lose this year. That’s good. People are pretty excited about basketball. That was not the case a year or a year and a half ago.

“Expectations are good. Our expectations internally are going to be much higher than what the people have. But, you have to earn it. Just because you show up doesn’t mean good things will happen. We’re a work in progress. We have good talent, but we have work to do.”

The Tigers newcomers are loaded with talent, but Wade is stressing to them that this is a new world. Things will no longer come easily for these highly-recruited players.

“These guys are great learners,” said Wade, referring to his freshman class. “I am proud of how they have progressed. We have to teach a lot of things. We have to grow these guys.

“We have to show them how to reverse the ball, how to pivot, how to catch the ball. There are certain things they could get away with at other levels, but not now. They have the willingness to get better. That growth is going to take some time.”

Wade acknowledged that this freshman class is loaded with talent.

“It’s a very good class,” Wade said. “Now, they have to take it from the paper to the court. Rankings and stars don’t matter anymore. They won that race. Now, they have to earn it again and move forward at another level.”

Most early predictions have LSU as a NCAA tournament team – the fifth best team in the SEC behind Kentucky, Tennessee, Auburn and Mississippi State. Wade is emphasizing that the Tigers must earn any success which may happen this season.

“A team has to earn the right to win,” Wade said. “Over what it has done for 30 years, Kentucky has earned the right to win. Auburn and Tennessee earned the benefit of the doubt by winning the conference last year. We’re not in that position. We haven’t done anything in a long time.”

Due to the influx of talent, Wade is running practices differently from last season.

“We’ve been doing more three-on-three, four-on-four and five-on-five during the summer and preseason workouts,” Wade said. “We didn’t practice a lot like that last year. We want them to learn how guys want the ball and how guys pass the ball.

“The more talent you have, the less you need to do. You can do less thinking and play off your talent. We had to do different things last year. Now, we need to be really, really good on three or four things on defense and really, really good on three or four things on offense. Then, you let the talent take over.”

Wade has a list of areas in which the Tigers need to show improvement from last season. Most of these issues are on the defensive end of the floor.

"We have to be better at rebounding,” Wade said. “Our ball-screen defense, our on-ball defense and our post defense have to be better. Hopefully, we’ll have some shot-blocking and a rim protector this year. Guys went by us last year and then it was a layup line. We’ll also be long at the wings.

“On offense, the No. 1 thing is to not turn the ball over. We have an excellent chance to make a shot and then we have an excellent chance to offensive rebound if we miss if we don’t turn it over.”

Wade used a football term to address another part of the game where LSU must make some progress.

“Our special teams were terrible last year,” Wade said. “I did a bad job. Our free throw block-outs were bad. We gave up too many fast breaks on missed free throws. Our base-line out of bounds plays and our sidelines out-of-bounds plays must be better. We were terrible out of the huddle last year.”

According to Wade, every player will be ready when team practices begin. The only injuries are what Wade called “nagging stuff and nothing requiring surgery.”

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