LSU Basketball Coach Will Wade Wants Regular Season Success to Start Reflecting in the SEC Tournament

You don't have to tell coach Will Wade about LSU's recent struggles in the SEC tournament. It's been one and done for the Tigers in each of the first three seasons under Wade and the program hasn't advanced in the tournament since the 2015-16 season when Ben Simmons was on campus.

To put the poor showings in perspective, in the four years senior guard Skylar Mays has been with the program, the team has yet to win an SEC tournament game. Keep in mind, Wade himself has only been to the tournament once as he was serving a suspension in 2019 when the team lost to Florida 76-73 as a No. 1 seed.

So when he was asked on what he can draw from past experiences for better results in 2020, his answer drew a few laughs from the media.

"I hadn’t been there but once," Wade said with a smile. "It was a quick showing on Thursday. Just in general in tournament play, the hardest game to win is the first game. That’s the one game where the team who played the day before has a little bit of an advantage to start the game. They’ve been in the gym; they’ve gotten going a little bit. You’ve got to get off to a good start. Make sure you don’t dig yourself a hole against that team that played the day before."

Much like last season, LSU has earned its double-bye which means it won't play until Friday at around 8:30 p.m. The three opponents the Tigers could potentially face are Vanderbilt, Arkansas and South Carolina.

LSU had its tough times with both Vanderbilt and Arkansas, losing to both on the road by the same 99-90 score. The Tigers did beat the Razorbacks in what turned into a nail biter in the PMAC and knocked off a physical Gamecocks squad on the road.

Wade said he's looked at the bracket and said each potential opponent pose offensive threats that have been 'nightmare' matchups for the Tigers this season. In the four games against those three teams, LSU has allowed a scoring average of 91 points a game.

"Obviously, Vanderbilt has Saben Lee; he’s been a nightmare for us to stop for two years," Wade said. "Arkansas, we know what just happened with them. Jimmy Whitt has killed us in both games. We haven’t had an answer for Whitt. South Carolina is so big and physical; they’re a very, very tough matchup for us. We’ll have to see what comes out of that grouping the next couple days and be ready to play Friday night.”

With the uncertainty of which team the Tigers will eventually play on Friday, Wade said practice for the first few days at least, will be primarily focused on themselves as they look to improve on their deficiencies.

"There are a couple common actions that a couple of the teams run so we’re going to work on guarding those," Wade said. "Work on some breakdown offense, work on some breakdown defensive principles. Hopefully we get a little bit better this week as we move forward into the SEC Tournament.”

Part of Wade's message to the Baton Rouge faithful right when he took the job in 2017 was how he wanted to build a consistent winner at LSU. He wanted to build a program that is competitive each and every year, one that follows great seasons with good or as great seasons.

The last two years, Wade has built a program that puts winning at a premium but that hasn't translated to Nashville for the SEC tournament. The hope is for LSU to start rectifying those struggles this year.

"We want to fancy ourselves as a good program, one of the top programs in the SEC. We need to win at least a game," Wade said. "Show up and win a game. We haven’t made it to semi-finals in four years. We haven’t made the finals since ’93. It’s been a drought. If we want to be a good team and a good program in this league we’ve got to win a little bit in this tournament.”