LSU remains unbeaten, but it takes more than that to make Will Wade happy
LSU's men’s basketball team won by 35 or more points for the fifth time this season, producing a 95-60 win over Lipscomb on Wednesday night before a Pete Maravich Assembly Center crowd of 10,767.
“I think we’re underachieving,” dissatisfied Tigers’ head coach Will Wade said afterward.
No. 16 ranked LSU is 12-0, its best start to a season since the 1990-2000 squad began 13-0, eventually won the SEC championship and advanced to the Sweet 16.
“I don’t think we have anybody on our team playing their best right now,” Wade said.
Despite leading scorer Tari Eason sitting out Wednesday’s win with a back injury, the Tigers had six players score in double figures as LSU scored its second most points of the season and tied its most made 3-pointers (12) since the 101-39 Nov. 9 season opening blowout of Louisiana-Monroe.
“Comfort is the enemy of progress,” said Wade, riffing off a quote from the late PT Barnum of Barnum and Bailey Circus fame. “We’ve got guys who are comfortable with just being okay with how they’re playing and they are capable of so much more and we’re capable of so much more.”
The Tigers scored 30 points – almost a third of their points – off 22 Lipscomb turnovers.
“We turned it over 10 times in the second half, gave up 3 3’s in the last four minutes (to allow Lipscomb) to get to 60,” Wade lamented.
The Tigers are one of five remaining unbeaten teams in Division 1 heading into its SEC opener next Wednesday at No. 12 Auburn, which is 12-1.
“That’s (the way LSU played in the Lipscomb win) not working next Wednesday at Auburn in that environment,” Wade said. “We go over there and cough the ball up like that, the roof’s caving in. We’ll be hanging from the rafters, it’s the toughest environment in our league.
“I can see down the road, I don’t just live in the present. I live for reality, what’s fixing to happen. . .it’s the facts, some people don’t like facts.”
LSU senior forward Darius Days, whose outside shooting touch returned with his 21-point performance vs. Lipscomb punctuated by his 5 of 8 3’s, has heard plenty of Wade post-game warning shots throughout his career.
“Coach is Coach,” Days said in the most diplomatic way possible. “He’s always preaching a lot of things to us.”
Days’ first 3-pointer with the game just 17 seconds old jumpstarted an 18-5 LSU lead before the first media timeout with 14:54 left in the first half. At that point, the Tigers had scored 10 points off four Lipscomb turnovers and were shooting 70 percent from the field.
Usually, at the first media timeout or shortly thereafter, Wade subs in Eason, sophomore point guard Eric Gaines and freshman small forward Alex Fudge. But with no Eason available, little-used freshman Bradley Ezewiro took his place and appeared tentative.
LSU missed the burst that Eason gave them and it wasn’t until a 16-2 scoring run in the final 4:21 of the first half for 48-24 halftime lead was there a sense that the Tigers overcame his loss.
Besides Days, six LSU players scored over their averages including senior guard Xavier Pinson with 17 points, Gaines and freshman guard Brandon Murray 13 each, freshman center Efton Reid 12, sophomore forward Mwani Wilkinson 11 and Fudge 8.
“I think they’re really good and well-coached,” said Lipscomb coach Lennie Acuff, whose team fell to 6-8 after its 5-2 start when star player Ashan Abdullah got hurt.
LSU will take the next two days off, but Wade said a majority of Tigers’ coaches and players are getting their COVID-19 booster on Thursday and on Dec. 26.
“There's a lot of personal decisions and personal sacrifices that have to go into this,” Wade said. “And so, like everybody knows what we need to do to give ourselves the best opportunity to play a full season to play a full season as normal as possible. I think they're willing to sacrifice for that, but I'm not saying everybody's particularly thrilled about it.”