 10/13/2020
By: Terrill J. Weil Da Boot Sports! The local media had an opportunity to speak with LSU Head Basketball Coach Will Wade on Tuesday morning. Coach Wade was excited to answer questions about his 2020-21 team. LSU Basketball will be here before we know... Below is part of the press conference....... LSU Head Coach Will Wade Press Conference 10/13/20 Opening statement… “An update on the last seven months would probably take a lot longer than everyone wants to be on this call but we’re looking at moving forward. We’re excited to begin a new phase with the 20 hours a week on Wednesday. It’s something that we haven’t been able to do. We’re going to phase into it because we’re still not through with all our conditioning yet. We’re going to stick with the schedule that we’ve been on for the next couple weeks, then we’ll transition into more full-fledged practice. We’re going to (team) practice Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the next couple of weeks, do individual workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays then take the weekends off. We’re conditioning on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a little bit of conditioning on Friday. The following week will be our Boot Camp (Thursday, Friday, Saturday) and then we’ll practice every day after that. So, we’re going to take it slow as we get going. I like where our team is at and I like where it’s heading. We’re making a lot of athletic plays; the defense is a markedly better. We have a good philosophy defensively and I feel like we’re going to be much improved on the defensive end going forward. We have to continue get better and blend all the guys that we have.” On the defensive philosophy… “It’s a pretty big philosophical change. It’ll be very noticeable when we play. A little more aggressive in some areas and a little bit smarter in other areas with what we give up and what we are going to take away. I think our guys have done a good job so far of executing what we need to do. We have to clean some things up and get better in other areas, but there will be noticeable differences in what we do and how we do it. We have to continue to improve and fine tune what we’re doing. We’ve been able to build it over the last couple of weeks. We still have to add a couple new wrinkles and a couple of twists, but we have the base defense in but we just have to add to it and build on what we got.” On if the roster moves have an impact on the defensive changes… “Part of having a good defense is having some defensive minded guys. Charles Manning, a guy who’s coming back, is defensive minded. Wait until you see Mwani Wilkinson and Jalen Cook defend. Those are two very good, I don’t want to say elite yet, but very good defenders. Jalen Cook may be the best on-ball defender I’ve seen since we had Briante Weber at VCU. He’s the second all-time NCAA steals leader. Cook is as good as I’ve seen at hounding the ball and guarding the ball. When you watch Mwani Wilkinson for a full practice, he may make two or three mistakes the entire practice. It’s uncanny how sharp he is defensively. Our returners, Javonte Smart is getting better on that end, Trendon (Watford) is talking, communicating, and being a leader on that end. Darius Days is in great shape, he’s down to 238, so he’s been able to move and been good defensively. Bryan Penn-Johnson is helping us at the rim, so we’ve got some better defensive pieces. In the past, we haven’t had anything to hang our hat on defensively. Offensively if things don’t go well, we could get in the paint, get to the free-throw line, chuck it off the backboard, get offensive rebounds and find a way to dig out some points. Defensively, we haven’t had that. We’re going to really protect the paint and force you to shoot contested shots, stay between our man and the basket and give ourselves a better chance to defensive rebound. We got a little bit sturdier philosophy and we have some guys that are more interested than we have had in the past in guarding.” On if Bryan Penn-Johnson is comparable to Kavell Bigby-Williams… “No, Bryan Penn-Johnson is a totally different player. Their similar in that Bryan Penn-Johnson is 7’1 and Kavell Bigby-Williams was 6’11, they’re massive human beings. Bryan Penn-Johnson is very skilled offensively. He’s going to affect more shots than he blocks, Kavell Bigby-Williams was the opposite. (Penn-Johnson) a very cerebral player, very smart player. He understands our philosophy. He’s used to playing a match-up zone, he knows what he’s doing from his time at Washington. There’s very few that teach a zone better than Jim Boeheim and his tree and Coach Hopkins at Washington is part of that. Penn has an advanced understanding of what we’re doing which has helped him adjust quickly and know what he needs to do and help the other guys get in position.” On the improved depth helping the defense… “Yeah, we’re playing a lot harder defensively which is a big part of the equation. But we’ve got other guys that can come in. If you’re not doing your job, or you miss too many assignments in a row, then we’ve got somebody that can come in and replace you and do just as good of a job. We haven’t had that last year or two years ago, we only played eight guys. If we played today, I’ve got nine guys I could put in an SEC game and be comfortable with that. There’s another three or four of them on scholarship that, every other day you think you could play him, but they just haven’t showed that consistency yet. We have a roster of 13 guys that can all play. It makes practice competitive. Skylar Mays came to practice last week and after practice he said, ‘Coach, you have five people above the rim on every shot.’ Sometimes it takes some perspective from someone else to see the difference in our depth and athleticism.” On what Trendon Watford has improved from last season… “Trendon has done a phenomenal job. I’d say the first thing is leadership. He’s more vocal, he’s leading, he’s talking to guys, he’s very competitive on the court. He’s also able to bring guys together off the court. He’s playing a lot more physical whether it be posting guys up, rebounding and hitting people. Those are areas that I’m excited about, but where most fans and others will be more excited about is that he’s shooting the ball really well. He has the capability to be 38 percent or 40 percent from three. If he does that, it opens up the driving lane and it gives him opportunity and space to drive it. His leadership, his physicality and his ability to shoot the ball are all three big areas where he’s made some strides. Give him credit, took the feedback from the process (the NBA scouts) and he’s attacked that feedback day after day. That’s not easy to do.” Offensively ... “Offensively, we’ve got some good parts. We just have to make sure we value the ball and get a shot on the basket. I think we are going to be an elite offensive rebounding team … We’ve got good pieces. We are going to play a little bit faster trying to get to our spots quicker. We’ve got a great point guard with Javonte, a tremendous scorer with Cam Thomas. We’ve got Days, Watford. We can play big, we can play small. There are a lot of different ways we can play. We have a lot of versatility which will make us difficult to guard. Offensively and defensively we have one way to play when we go big. We have another way to play when we go small. We can play multiple different styles and multiple different ways which we haven’t been able to do.”
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