LSU basketball tips off season with SEC Media Day in Alabama
LSU basketball coach Will Wade, along with guards Skylar Mays and Javonte Smart hopped on the SEC Network Wednesday afternoon at SEC Media Day to discuss the 2019 team.
The Tigers are coming off a successful season in Wade's second year at the helm, capped off by a birth to the "Sweet Sixteen," where LSU ultimately fell to Michigan State.
Mays, one of the longest tenured players on the roster, is now entering his fourth year with the program. The SEC Network crew made sure to point out the senior guard has been with LSU longer than his head coach.
"I'm on the back end for sure," Mays joked Wednesday.
"You feel a lot better when you have him, when you have a backcourt like we have," Wade said. "You're very confident. I think Skylar led the SEC in minutes played last year. My staff would always say to get him a break and I was like 'Well who do you want me to put in for him.' I trust the guy."
That trust Wade shows in Mays is why the senior guard is so pivotal to the success LSU could have on the floor, making him the unquestioned leader of the team, especially with the loss of Tremont Waters to the NBA last season.
"I embrace that leadership aspect," Mays said. "We have a lot of guys capable of doing a lot of great things on the court but I think the biggest thing I bring to the table is just that calmness and I think I do that by just being myself."
As far as newcomers go, Wade said he's been impressed most with five-star freshman Trendon Watford and JUCO transfer Charles Manning, who were both players the staff came away from the team's trip to Spain as guys who could make a big difference this season.
Watford led the Tigers in scoring over the summer trip to Spain, averaging 18 points per game while Manning is someone Wade says can guard an opposing team's best player and neutralize him if not completely shut him down.
"He's one of those guys that really affects winning," Wade said of Manning. "He makes open threes, can slash and someone who if we put him on another team's best player I feel we've got a good chance of shutting them down."
"Very excited about those newcomers, Watford is very talented with the ball in his hands," Wade continued.
It's not all fresh faces for the Tigers as LSU returns five players that were integral parts of the eight man rotation the Tigers primarily went with last season, including Mays and Smart.
Also returning this season are forwards Emmitt Williams and Darius Days along with forward/guard Marlon Taylor, who excited Tiger fans with his explosive dunks in his first season with the program.
"Emmitt Williams has been somebody that's been a bit of a lunch-pail, blue collar, hard-working guy and I think he's somebody that can do the dirty work for us," Wade said. "The difference in us being a very good team and being a great team is going to be our defensive rebounding, how gritty and tough we can be in the paint."
Wade admitted while the team won't be as tall as last year's team he's hoping the team will edge most other opponents out in quickness and athleticism.
The third year head coach also expects a better scoring season, saying this team shoots the ball way better than the 2018 team that averaged 82 points a game.
For a team that finished 16-2 in SEC play and led to an SEC championship for the 2018-19 season, there's a lot to continue to build on according to Mays. There's a confidence that exists now in the locker room not through last season's success, but the work the team continues to put in.
"I think we have every reason to be confident based on the work we put in," Mays said. "That starts from the top down, how coach Wade carries himself and how he instills that confidence in us. I feel like if we stick to that confidence and focus everyday I think we'll be in great shape."
Wade, Mays and Smart couldn't escape questions about the No. 2 football team in the country that also resides in Baton Rouge, with Smart calling Mays the basketball team's Joe Burrow.
"I'm just hoping we can score more points than the football team," Wade joked. "The football team has been scoring at such a clip I'm worried the basketball team won't be able to put up as many points. I'd feel a lot better about our defensive rebounding if we had coach O."
"He's a leader, it's his senior year and we look at him for leadership and we all follow behind him," Smart said of Mays.
