re: LSU Basketball - Next Seasons Core: Ward, Reed, & Williams

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Ward has some upside. I don't know what Reed does well. Every now and then he flashes but usually sticks out like a sore thumb.

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This is whats frustrating a bit about McMahon's teams is these 2 were his crown jewel high school recruits and neither has really panned out the way people thought they would by the end of year 2. Reed is as inconsistent as anyone, shows some great stuff but has so many games where he has like 5 points, 3 boards. Ward can absolutely rip it through the net from 3 at times but doesnt seem to do much outside of that and progressing fast enough as an overall player. When he's hot from 3 it's fun to watch, when he hits 1 or 2 3's in a night its kind of like, "well what else did we get from him?"

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Williams will develop into a nice player.

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I am not saying he is or isnt but its too early to really tell. He was forced to play a lot because we simply didnt have anyone to run our offense when Cook wasnt playing especially early on. Hannibal helped out later on but with Cook AND Stewart out we had to play Williams more than we probably should have. He might be a good player down the road, but I'm not sure. I could have sworn after his freshman year Brandon Murray would turn into a very good player and he just finished year 3 and didnt get on the floor very much over at Ole Miss, and his freshman year kind of blew away Williams' here. In the final 12 regular season conference games Williams had 3 assists. No, thats not a typo, Williams had THREE assists over 12 straight conference games to end the regular season. He had 4 games where he scored 10-16 points which isnt bad, but then in the 8 other games scored 6 or less as well. He simply has a ways to go.