BATON ROUGE – LSU men’s basketball Coach Will Wade met with the local and area media on Monday afternoon previewing what will be the start of fall practice on Friday afternoon.
The Tigers will begin preparations for the 2017-18 season opener on Friday, Nov. 10 against Alcorn State at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. Ticket information and sales are available at www.LSutix.net.
Coach Wade talked about a wide variety of subjects including attention to detail, update injuries and getting the team accustomed to the style of play they will be asked to take part in. Here are some of his comments:
Opening Statement …
“Injury update to get started. Jeremy Combs (graduate transfer, North Texas) we did a tight rope procedure on his ankle last week. We have to re-stabilize his ankle. He is going to be out six to eight weeks. That pushes him right up to the start of our first game on Nov. 10th. We did it last Monday and it’s really six to eight weeks from then, so it will be right around our first game that he could be available. He had some ankle problems last year at North Texas. We just did not feel like it was stable enough for him to make it through the whole season. Our doctors did not and we felt that this gave him the best opportunity to play this year which is what we wanted to do. Otherwise the team is a work in progress. We have a lot of work to do as we start practice on Friday. We are getting tougher. We are getting grittier, but we have a lot of work and a lot of things to clean up. I do think we will be tougher, a lot grittier. We are excited to get going on Friday and get out of the individual development stage and get more into a team stage.”
On Galen Alexander‘s injury (freshman, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana) …
“He is recovering. He is at about 75 to 80 percent probably from his knee injury. He does modified workouts, modified conditioning. He is still not back fully ready to go.”
On how changing the culture is progressing …
“We are making progress. This week is our boot camp week so we do conditioning boot camp every morning. You have to pass all three days to practice on Friday. If you don’t pass this you don’t practice and you are not going to play for us. We did our first one this morning and it went well.”
On if they got all the players to “buy-in” to their system …
“Buy-in and all of that stuff is buzz words. There is a new normal. They know what to expect now. They know what the new normal is and you either do it or you get left behind. They are very clear about where our standards are, where we are and that we are not bending on anything on our expectations.”
On how much excitement the new normal has brought to the team …
“People want to be pushed and they want to reach their potential. Our guys are no different. I like the way our guys have worked for the most part. We have some guys that have worked very, very hard. I think nobody wants to be a loser. If you give them a map that says this is what helps us win, this is what wins, it’s proven that it has won, they will do it and especially when they see that they get better. I think that if you asked any of our guys they’d tell you they are in better shape, they are stronger, their basketball skills are a little bit better. They feel like they have improved. None of this works if they don’t feel like they are getting better. That is certainly a critical piece to what we are doing.
On how much progress was made with conditioning …
“We made quite a bit of progress. We need more, you always want more. On average our guys put on a little over 12 pounds each. We had some guys on some weight loss routines and they did a nice job. We made good progress. We want to play fast we want to play physical so you have to be in great shape, you have to have some girth to you. A lot of our guy’s bodies have changed. Some of the most noticeable ones would be (Wayde) Sims (sophomore Baton Rouge). His body has changed quite a bit. Skylar Mays (sophomore Baton Rouge) has lost some weight. We are trying to get him more agile. I think it has helped him with his explosiveness. (Brandon) Sampson’s (junior Baton Rouge) upper body has certainly changed quite a bit. All of our guys have done a good job with the strength and conditioning.”
On which guys have impressed him the most …
“Depends on what day. We don’t have as much consistency as we need. Everybody has had their moments. Peacock today, feather duster tomorrow so we have to be good every day. You cannot rest of what happened yesterday. There is nobody that you can single out. I would say our hardest workers are Skylar Mays has been one of our hardest workers. I would say Aaron Epps has been one of our hardest workers, Duop Reath. I would say those three have been our three hardest workers. Daryl Edwards has worked really hard, our junior college kid and Randy (Onwuasor), a fifth year kid since they have gotten here they have worked hard. Of the returners I would say Mays and the two big fellas have worked hard. (Aaron) Epps (Sr., Ball, La.) has been playing with a lot of confidence. He is confident because he is working hard so that is good.”
On his comfort level so far in the process …
“We are a work in progress. I see it for what it is. We are a work in progress. I think we made some big strides with our toughness like I said. I think we are getting there with where we want to be with that. I think our conditioning made some strides, but we have a lot of work to do. As the coach I bet we spent statistically 80 percent of our time working on defense. We spent a lot of time trying to shore up our defense and just get in a base defense that we can tweak for each opponent. So we’ve spent about 80 percent of our time on defense which is obviously critical. We started putting in an offense about 10 days ago and we are just kicking the ball all over the gym so now you need to start worrying about turnovers. There is a give and take with everything that you are doing. I think our defense is much improved. We still have a ton of work to do there. We have to be able to finish possessions. We have to be able to rotationally check out. We have a lot of work we have to do to finish off possessions with our defense. By doing that with our defense, our offense is a little bit behind and a little bit raggedy right now. We have to get it all going together. Like I said we have a lot of work to do in these next six weeks because what we are doing is pretty different from what they are used to so there is an adjustment period for that.”
On if he expects the toughness to transition to practice …
“I don’t want it to translate to practice, I want it to translate to the games. If we do what we are supposed to do, we will be in a lot of six minute games. It’s going to be two or three possessions with six minutes to go in the game. You are either going to figure out a way to win or whimper your way down the stretch and get blasted. We want to be in great shape in the last six minutes and we want to be mentally tough to where we can execute and physically pound people in the last six minutes of the game. That is what it boils down to. How tough are you going to be? You are going to either make an excuse or make a play. We want guys that are going to make a play because they have been working hard and know that is the expectation and it’s what they want to do.”
On how much weight Duop Reath (Sr., Perth, Australia) and Aaron Epps put on …
“We have some concerns down low. We are not the biggest team down low. It’s my job to scheme around that. Last year at VCU we were top 10 in the country in points in the paint. We just annihilated the paint through post touches, driving the ball. That is not the type of team we are going to be. We have to adjust what we do. We are not going to be able to just throw the ball in there and live in the paint and live off of post feeds. Now we do want to get the ball in the post. It’s my job to put our post guys where we can get the ball on the move which is area that they are good. We have some real strengths with those guys. Aaron Epps can shoot the ball and he is a good offensive rebounder. I have to put him in positions where he can get open shots, and I got to put him Epps in position where he can fly in there and crash the glass. With Duop, he is really good catching the ball on the move. He is really good when he has space in the middle so I have to put him in position where he can catch the ball and has space in the middle. We can’t just say we are going to pound it in. We are not going to beat anybody by just throwing it in there. We have to compensate for what our strengths and weaknesses are and that is on me to put our guys in the best position to play to their strengths. Duop can score with his back to the basket. The freshman (Mayan) Kiir, he is not a great scorer with his back to the basket, but he plays with a phenomenal amount of energy. When he is out there something is going to happen, good or bad, something will happen. He is somebody we have down there with the Combs situation. We will see what happens he is somebody that we are certainly counting on …”
On how much Duop Reath has improved …
“I think naturally he has played it more and been around it more. He is a phenomenal kid. He wants to be so good and like I said he is one of the hardest workers for us. Absolutely love him as a person and as a player. He is going to have a really good year for us. Sometimes he is his own worst because he is so hard on himself. He is learning how things work, why things work, why you have to do this, why it’s important to open your hips, why it’s important to post a certain way. There are a lot of little intricacies I think he’s learned that will help him out this season that he maybe had not picked up in the past.”
On interacting with students to get them interested in LSU basketball …
“We are trying. We have to recruit everybody right? We want the students to be involved in what we are doing. I think that is important. Our kids are students, I want the students to be involved so I tried to reach out to them and anybody else that will listen to me to get people involved and excited about our program. I think we have a great opportunity November 10th. It’s a Friday night. I know high school football will still be going on but it’s also the night before we have a big football game and I think we have a chance to really have a good crowd that night and set the tone as we move forward. Been fun getting to know the students. I’ve learned a lot about Louisiana geography because I’m always asking where they are from. One thing I found out is when you ask where someone is from they tell you their high school … It’s been fun to get out and meet folks.”