Will Wade didn’t walk out of Friday’s 41-point win over Texas Southern feeling like everything was fine.
That’s the part LSU fans should probably pay attention to. Even after a blowout, the Tigers’ coach wasn’t interested in celebration mode, and he made it clear his team has plenty to clean up before the schedule tightens. The next stop comes Monday night, when LSU hosts Louisiana Tech at 7 p.m. at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The matchup sits in the shadow of Saturday’s game against preseason-ranked No. 15 Gonzaga, but Wade wasn’t letting his team drift that far ahead. In his eyes, Louisiana Tech is the real task right now.
“Shoot, you watched us play tonight; we got a big one Monday against Louisiana Tech,” he said. “Louisiana Tech's gonna play hard.
I mean, these guys are gonna play hard, and they're the best of these three outfits that we've played. So we can't worry about Gonzaga … It's gonna take everything we got to beat Louisiana Tech the way we've been playing.”
That message fits the mood around a team still trying to settle in. LSU is 2-0 after wins over Texas Southern and LSU New Orleans, but Wade has been blunt about the fact that his group isn’t where it needs to be yet. Against Texas Southern, the Tigers went just 15 of 25 at the free throw line and 5 of 22 from 3-point range, and they also finished with 14 turnovers.
They were bigger and more talented than Texas Southern, and that showed in the paint. But Wade wasn’t impressed enough to soften his tone afterward. He was even surprised when Gonzaga came up after the game, cutting in before the question could go any further to steer the conversation back to Louisiana Tech.
The Tigers’ focus Monday will also be on getting a few key pieces rolling before the Gonzaga game ever enters the picture. Skyy Clark, LSU’s starting shooting guard, has yet to find his rhythm from deep. The UCLA transfer is 0 for 11 from 3-point range through two games.
Brice Dessert has had an uneven start as well. LSU’s starting center scored 9 points on 4-of-6 shooting against Texas Southern, but the Tigers were outscored by six points during his 12 minutes on the floor. In the opener, he had four turnovers and fouled out in 18 minutes.
Wade said Dessert is still adjusting to the pace of college basketball after playing in Europe, and he expects better from the 7-footer moving forward.
Louisiana Tech arrives at 2-0 after beating Kent State by 10 in its opener and then rolling past Division-II Arkansas-Monticello 76-17 on Thursday. That 17-point total was the fewest Louisiana Tech has allowed in a game since 1935.
LSU will be the toughest opponent on Louisiana Tech’s regular-season schedule, since the Bulldogs do not have any other high-major games lined up. For Wade, though, the bigger point is simpler: his own team cannot afford to coast.
Donovan Dent, the UCLA transfer running point for LSU, said the coach’s reaction after Friday’s game should keep the Tigers locked in.
“I think coach will make it pretty easy for us to lock in,” said the UCLA transfer, who has 20 assists to zero turnovers after two games. “He wasn't too happy with us today, so I think we'll be pretty locked in Monday for sure.”
Wade put the standard even more plainly.
“You can't accept in winning what you wouldn't accept in losing,” Wade said. “Some of the mistakes we made will get us beat.
And the first two teams we've played are not capable of taking advantage of those mistakes. So the teams we play from here on out are going to be fully capable of taking advantage of these mistakes.
And so it's on us to get this cleaned up sooner rather than later.”
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For LSU, the issue is not whether it belongs in the mix. It is whether it can clean up the one problem that keeps showing up whenever the stakes rise, because the SEC has already made clear there is no room for another slip if the Tigers want to keep pace with the teams around them. With Alabama, Kentucky and the rest of the conference crowding the same space in the rankings, LSUs margin for error is getting thinner by the week. [Read more 🡒]