Published Jan 24, 2019
Wade’s World has no place for sloppy play, even in a 10-point SEC win
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Ron Higgins  •  Death Valley Insider
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By Ron Higgins

In LSU basketball coach Will Wade’s zest for excellence, he takes small solace that his newly-minted No. 25 ranked team is now good enough to win even when it doesn’t play well.

Yes, it’s reached the point where putting 90-points plus on the scoreboard in a 92-82 victory over Georgia on Wednesday night in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center to remain unbeaten at 5-0 in SEC play isn’t good enough for Wade or the 15-3 Tigers.

Nor it should be, not if you want to win championships and eventually advance deep into March Madness.

Against a Bulldogs’ team with one SEC win that trailed by 17 points early in the second half to the Tigers, LSU played its worst defensive half of the year since early in the season.

Actually, it looked like defense left over from previous Tigers’ coach Johnny Jones last couple of forgettable disorganized years.

Five stoic statues wearing LSU unis were always just enough in a mental fog too late to the party. They got carved up by a Georgia offense that had averaged just 62.2 points in league play.

The only reason the Tigers dodged an embarrassing loss is Wade put the ball with the game on the line in point guard Tremont Waters’ hands and ordered everyone else to get the hell out of the way.

In the game’s final 4:25, Waters scored 10 of LSU’s final 16 points and assisted Kavell Bigby-Williams an old-fashioned 3-point play.

While Georgia’s Tom Crean joined a growing list of opposing coaches as members of the Tremont Waters Fan Club – “He hurts you with his scoring, he beats you with his passing,” Crean gushed – Waters confirmed it wasn’t a good night for his team despite his 26 points, 4 assists, 4 steals and no turnovers (a career-first) in 32 minutes.

“We knew it was not our best game,” Waters said. “Going into the game, things were a little shaky.”

Like what?

Lousy practices, confirmed a miffed Wade.

“It was very easy to see this coming from 100 miles away,” Wade said. “Our practices the last couple of days were sloppy.

“When you win and don’t play well, you’re tempting the basketball Gods.”

Wade recited a laundry list of the Tigers’ defensive breakdowns that resulted in Georgia shooting 53.6 percent from the field, including 58.6 in the second half when it also made 47.1 percent of its 3-point attempts.

“Communication was bad, we were a step slow, we got beat on backdoors, our foot angles were bad on the perimeter, we’re out there chasing them too long, they got direct line drives, our transition defense was awful, our post defense was even worse because we were letting the ball get in the post too easy, our on-ball defense wasn’t very good, they just cut us up and we didn’t get any deflections,” Wade said. “We were as poor as we could be, and I’m embarrassed.”

While the Tigers remain one of two SEC teams along with No. 1 ranked Tennessee unbeaten in league play, Wade’s harsh critique is on the money and exactly what his young team needs after just the first few weeks of a league play.

LSU’s athleticism is breathtaking at times, especially when you have such stair-climbers as 6-5 Marlon Taylor and 6-6 Emmitt Williams attaching the backboards at both ends of the court.

“There’s a lot of things you have to get ready for when you play LSU,” said Crean, whose team fell to 9-9 overall and 1-5 in the SEC. “It starts with Tremont and his ability to pass. It’s the spacing they have and the way he finds people. It’s their abilities to play through their bigs.”

LSU bigs Naz Reid and Bigby-Williams, who was named the SEC’s Player of the Week Monday for his performances in wins over Ole Miss and South Carolina, certainly have had positive moments this season.

But both looked lost defensively against Georgia, even with enormously talented freshman Reid scoring 15 points and collecting 7 rebounds before fouling out.

Reid consistently allowed Georgia starting forward Nicolas Claxton and reserve Derek Ogbeide to catch the ball in the post and have their way with him.

That duo combined for 29 points and 14 rebounds, a reason why Georgia hung around just enough to cause concern and raise Wade’s blood pressure which he hopes and expects to be lowered Saturday when LSU plays at Missouri.

“We have a lot of work to do,” he said. “This is not what we expect and not to our standard. We’re going to get exposed on Saturday if we don’t correct some things.”