LSU b-ball game breakdown

Can someone help me with why javonte didn’t play

Thomas is a dynamic scorer, but needs to be told what a good vs bad shot is. We should be in the top3-5 in scoring, but our our lack of defense will cause us to have to out score everyone to win.
Our on ball defense appears to be a little better, but our interior defense is god awful. Days plays his butt off , but is closer to 6-5 than 6-7 and needs help on the interior. Need more of Leblanc playing around the rim on defense and Watford needs to focus more on the defensive end.
Should be a fun year with 1 or possibly 2 tourney wins.

That stat is largely the result of a 17-10 NSU advantage on the offensive glass and 14-15 turnover difference...most of those being “live ball” turnovers.

I’m not worried about the rebounds. Today was a bit of an outlier there.

Offensively, LSU is fine. They played with two freshman PG’s who tried to do a bit too much at times today and Thomas (despite scoring 29) can force some things unnecessarily.

Defensively they are still a complete mess and it is clear the staff has no idea how to fix it. The only answer is that (despite what Wade says) they don’t put much emphasis on defense. It appears their only defensive philosophy is to try to get a TO so they can get out and run. Otherwise, they have ZERO interest in simply just forcing tough shots. Good defenses anticipate where the opponent is going and get into position BEFORE the drive occurs or the pass is made. They are getting in good guarding position as the ball is in the air. LSU just watches the ball at all times and are completely shocked when the ball happens to find a wide open shooter who they lost. Everything is a reaction.

Still a good team that should win several games, but they are going to have some very frustrating losses. Games where they shoot above 50% and still lose

Realistically, you can’t take a single thing away from today’s game. We had a couple awesome games defensively too this year (against bad competition).

Add in that Smart didn’t play and we have had only two...TWO full team practices in 2 weeks. What do you expect. Wade loves a routine and has set things to do. It’s all out of whack right now.

Overall you had one team playing their super bowl and another just trying to score and expect the other team to give up. SEC play starts next week and that’s where Wade and his teams thrive.

We are a very good team but I do worry about our size overall. Just need more commitment to rebounding

Well I can tell you I didn’t expect Nicholls to have 14 more FGA than us. Like my original post said.

And a lot of what I have pointed out has been fairly consistent in the Wade era. And again, I’m not bashing. Actually a Wade fan but every system has their trade offs.

Well if you want to do this we can.

A) they outrebounded us on the offensive side by 6..so let’s just say that’s 6 more shots. That is NOT a staple of Will Wade. In fact, we are annually a top 20 team in offensive rebounds. So we almost always get more shots B) You point out FGA but don’t point out FTA. We shot 28 free throws and they shot 14. Both teams had 1 and 1’s so let’s just cancel that out...so 14 more FTA’s means probably around 7 more possessions where shots would have happened. I just pointed out 13 possessions to you where a shot could have occurred which basically pulls us even in the FGA category.

Every single team will struggle with a nonconference foe that isn’t good for one reason or the other. Today is HARDLY a tell tale sign of things to come. Today we didn’t have our PG, Nicholls played their A+ game, we played disinterested on defense in the paint. It is what it is. I don’t know why people try to make something out of literally nothing. You won the game, didn’t look very good doing it, the players seemed pissed, the coaches seemed pissed, they’ll move on and beat TAMU by double digits. Zero point looking into things more.

The only real thing is that Watford and Thomas are impossible to stop when they are feeling it

Then why the motherblank was Smart at the game. I though you had to stay 500 ft away from everybody for 6 months in the Ebola protocol.

What you saw yesterday is what you see on a regular basis with Wades' Teams. We cannot run an offense for Sh*&! 4 people standing around the perimeter while one drives to basket or jacks up 3's is not running an offense.

Yep... you left out that we get dominated on the boards..and one of our possible rim protectors is gone.

Still an interesting roster/team with potential

It’s been so long since they played I forgot the game was on but I was shocked by the score too.

WW teams always seem to start slow and build momentum as the season goes on. With covid protocols we don’t know what practice looked like and several players out I’m not concerned yet. They have 5 tough games to start the SEC slate. If they can make it out of that with 2 or 3 wins I think they will start to get rolling.

I think it will be survive and learn early and get good late. If they can get to 3-2, I think 12-6 or even 13-5 is very possible.