LSU Basketball Coach Will Wade 'Fed Up' With Recent String of Blown Leads
Much like many LSU fans that have followed the men's basketball team in recent weeks, coach Will Wade has had enough.
For a team that's won eight straight including the last six by a combined 15 points, a team that's now back into the top-25 for the first time since Nov. 18, you'd think the head coach would be a little more positive.
Not Wade.
Because how you win matters and the fact is the way LSU has won recently, particularly the last two, is not a recipe for long term success. LSU held double-digit leads in the second half of wins over Florida and and Texas last week, games LSU won, but didn't win prettily.
With just 1:20 remaining in the Florida game, LSU held a 10-point lead and yet it let Florida rattle off three three-pointers to nearly come back and force overtime. In the 69-67 win over Texas, LSU held a 16-point lead in the second half, yet turnovers and a near eight minute scoring drought helped the Longhorns take the lead before LSU ultimately composed itself enough to win the game.
"I’m getting tired of losing all these leads and I’m going to talk to our guys about this today," Wade said. "I’ve tried to be nice about this and I’ve tried to talk through it and work through it but I’m done with that. We have terrible possessions, we do terrible things. We’ve got to get it corrected. What we’re doing is not going to work if we’re going to compete at the top of the league and be a good team. Quite frankly I’m sick of it. I’ve been kind of nice about it with our team but we’ve got to quit putting ourselves in these stupid situations."
Naturally the question becomes why is LSU continuing to struggle with leads late in the game? Wade has noticed a few trends that he was willing to share on Monday.
It starts with the turnovers. LSU struggled with turnovers mightily at the beginning of the season and then hit a bit of a dry spell at the start of of its eight game win streak. Over the last four games, however, LSU has turned the ball over 67 times, nearly 17 times a game.
"We have to quit turning the ball over all the time. That’s what is holding us back," Wade said. "We’ve got to get that corrected and we’ve got to have some vigor to get it corrected. I’m tired of it. I’m fed up with it. I’m tired of it.”
Other issues Wade's noticed is the offensive rebounds opposing teams have grabbed which are caused by guys not following their defensive assignment based on the scouting reports of the opponent.
In wins over Mississippi State and Texas A&M, LSU allowed 37 offensive rebounds between the two games. While those staggering numbers have improved in the Tigers last three games, Wade still isn't satisfied.
"We give up backbreaking offensive rebounds because we don’t rebound down, do our jobs how we need to do them defensively, and we lose all focus and attention to detail with our scouting report," Wades said. "We let players get to their right hands or left hands, whatever their dominant hands are. We can’t get into our ball screen coverage, we throw the ball all over the court, and we forget where we are and what color jersey we’re wearing. It’s the same stuff every time."
Wade insists he's been nice about it with the players to this point but the fact that these issues have continued to plague this team from being its best has forced his hand.
"I darn well know how to get it corrected, that’s to be a raving lunatic and it will work," Wade said. "Look at the Texas game, it was an exact replica of the Utah State game, we just got lucky. We made a few shots and Texas couldn’t handle our 1-3-1. If we keep doing that, you’re going to be flipping a coin, you are going to win one and lose one. Let’s stop flipping the damn coin and get it right so we win by double-digits and everybody cannot have to take their heart medication every night.”
We'll see just how much the team will learn over the next few days of what can be expected as some 'tough love' practices. LSU has Alabama and Ole Miss at home this week, both winnable games, for a chance to get to 8-0 in conference play.
Alabama is up next and while the Crimson Tide are just .500 in conference play, they feature an elite offense, No. 1 in the SEC in fact averaging 82.8 points per game.
Alabama features four of the top-30 three-point shooters in the conference, including John Petty, who is connecting on 48% of his attempts from beyond-the-arc, No. 2 in the SEC. The gameplan, Wade said, will be to try and force as many of threes as possible into twos.
"You’ve got to cut down on their attempts," Wade said. "They take almost 30 a game so if you can turn 10 of those three attempts a game into some twos, then you’re going to win the mathematical equation there. Teams are going to shoot what they shoot so you’ve got to limit attempts."
Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday at the PMAC with the game airing on ESPN2.
