Before he came to LSU three seasons ago as the Tigers’ head basketball coach, Will Wade took his Virginia Commonwealth team to Spain for a summer tour in August 2016.

“It went well,” Wade said during a Tuesday morning press conference.

So well that Wade has scheduled the same trip for the Tigers from Aug. 12-22. The schedule of games hasn’t been released, but LSU will play under FIBA (international) rules.

“We are taking the same trip to Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona and visiting the same places,” Wade said. “Typically, we have four games scheduled and we usually play three or four as sometimes I will cancel the last game. There is usually one team that we play that is really good. The last time, it was a four-quarter dogfight with one of the teams while the other games we won pretty comfortably.”

Wade wants to get a snapshot of his revamped 28-7 Sweet 16 team that lost sophomore guard Tremont Waters, freshman forward Naz Reid and senior Kavell Bigby-Williams to the NBA.

LSU returns six players with a combined 78 starts from last season, including five of its top eight scorers led by the backcourt of senior Skylar Mays (13.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg) and sophomore Javonte Smart (11.1 ppg, 3.3 rpg).

“I really like our backcourt as we have five really good options and that is obviously led by Javonte and Skylar,” Wade said. "We will not play Skylar and Javonte more than 15 minutes a game (in Spain) because I know those guys can play and it is not the point of us going over there.”

The intent of the trip is to see how new faces such freshmen signees Trendon Warford, James Bishop and Audree Hyatt and junior college transfers Charles Manning Jr. and Caleb Starks fit in the playing rotation.

“I am much more interested in James Bishop to see if he can take the things he learned on the practice floor into a game,” Wade said. “I am looking to see what Charles Manning can do. I want to see how Trendon (Watford) looks.

“How does (Darius) Days look as he just played spot minutes last year, as well as Emmitt (Williams) in a much more featured role. I am a lot more interested in Courtese Cooper, Aundre Hyatt and Marshall (Graves) and how they look.”

The Tigers have been in the weight room all summer and the results are noticeable. Wade said 88 percent of his team can dead lift more than 500 pounds now. He added every player set personal bests in the bench press, power cleans and single leg squats.

Returning 6-6 sophomore forward Williams, who averaged 7 points and 5.4 rebounds mostly in a reserve role, earned rave reviews from Wade.

“Emmitt has made as big as gains as anyone as he is close to 230 (pounds) and is looking and playing like a different guy,” Wade said. “Emmitt is going to shoot 35 percent plus from the three-point line this year. He has expanded his game and worked hard. He has made almost 500 threes a day this summer. You have to come out and guard Emmitt out there which opens up a lot of different options for us.”

The only returnee who won’t play in Spain is senior guard Marion Taylor, who started 24 games last season and a averaged 6.7 points and 3.6 rebounds.

Taylor underwent surgery early this summer, having a screw placed in his foot.

“It was something that he could have played through but we decided to bite the bullet now so he could be in as little pain as possible during the season,” Wade said. "It is something that we could have managed, but we did not want to press it and he will back in late August or early September as we did the surgery in late June, early July. He will be back in time for practice and there should be no ill effects for the season.”

Wade said he will start a different lineup for each game in Spain.

“It is whatever I think will work and we want to see different things so we will definitely plan the line-ups that way,” Wade said. “We will get to see who plays well together and who plays well off each other and get a feel for that.”

One thing LSU will work on is running a new offense to suit its personnel, especially now that pick-and-roll master expert Waters is playing for the Boston Celtics.

“We are going to play more motion instead of off ball-screens all the time,” Wade said. “(Last season) if you shut down our ball-screens we did not have a whole lot else to counter with. We were not able to throw it inside as we did not have a lot of back to the basket post-players.

“We are certainly going to use ball-screens, but it is more about being comfortable playing a different way and playing a lot faster than we have.”

Wade’s goals for the Spain tour starts with wanting his team to form an identity as a blue-collar squad.

“We want to be a team that is relentless to the ball on both ends, be a team that is a family and takes care of each other,” Wade said. “Hopefully we will be able to do that over in Spain.”