I have more Will Wade/Basketball info (long)

From a number of sources. It turns out that if you're out and about in Baton Rouge you will actually meet the man. Which I and others have done.

1. He didn't play high school or college basketball, and there's a reason for that - it would have been a waste of his time. This cat is barely 5-9 or 5-10, and if he's 160 pounds it's because he's got weights in his pockets. I understand he runs like four miles a day; he should stop. He needs to let himself go and eat like a Louisianan and it'll give him some gravitas.

2. That said, when he starts talking whatever you think of him physically goes out the door. He's not an a-hole like Saban was - Saban, regardless of how good a coach, was a guy who had an absolutely repulsive personality and it was always something of a mystery to me how he could be successful in a "people" business like college football coaching despite that - but he carries himself in a similar vein. Very professional, very confident, absolutely knows what he's doing, knows what he needs in order to win and has gotten a commitment to do it.

3. He's running essentially a Junction Boys program with these kids now, and it won't bother him in the least if a number of them give up after a few days of running suicide drills at 5 AM. And they're AGGRESSIVELY recruiting in an effort to fill up whatever spots open up when kids remove themselves from the roster. They're not going to kick anybody off the team, but the attrition will come anyway.

4. Blakeney is still in school and he's doing well in the hell-week practices. What's more, he's staying afterward and peppering the coaches with requests on how to get better. The issue with Blakeney is mama is dirt broke and desperately needs to improve her station, and Blakeney wants really badly to make some money to help her out. They're in a situation where 200K in Europe somewhere would dramatically change the equation, but Blakeney is starting to realize he's nowhere near getting drafted in the NBA right now. There is some sort of shot metric index the NBA uses, and just to get on the end of an NBA bench as a guard you have to be a 172 or something, and Blakeney is a 155. He's not going to be drafted. Plus, he's more like 6-2 1/2 than the 6-4 he's listed at. So the smart play is another year and some coaching - he's never really been coached and his knowledge of the game is apparently pitiful. He doesn't even know how to get off a screen or the principles of a motion offense, etc., and apparently Wade is appalled that a kid with this much talent is so far behind.

They think they can convince him to stay, but it's hard to tell broke people they can't go make six figures right now.

5. He likes Reath. He thinks he can coach Reath and make him a decent player. He thinks the things that are wrong with Reath are fixable. He also, believe it or not, likes Branden Jenkins. He thinks Jenkins will do much better next year when he's not fighting back from the knee. As for the rest of the team, I got the distinct impression his expectations are very low.

6. He will not accept the idea that the coming season is hopeless. He's determined to make this team competitive for next year. The question is how. It seems like a lot of this is up in the air but they could well be beating the bushes all summer trying to find kids who can contribute.

7. The recruiting class he takes this November will be nationally ranked, and it will elevate the program significantly. The recruiting class for next November will be elite.

8. I'm not sure about this, but the understanding I have is that Heath Schroyer, who was the head coach at Wyoming and Tennessee-Martin and was the lead assistant on Mark Gottfried's staff at NC State last year, is one assistant he's bringing in and Shyrone Chatman, who's a Baton Rouge guy who played and coached for Calipari at Memphis and was the lead assistant at UMass this past year, is another. Supposedly LSU is giving Wade a budget to bring in five "shadow staff" guys with "director of operations" and "player personnel" type titles, and he's going to bring in some notable people in those jobs. That will put LSU on a similar plane with Kentucky in terms of the amount of coaches and support staff.

9. The facilities do suck and need to be fixed. There is no coach's office in the PMAC and they have to walk over to the athletic administration building, which is stupid - when a kid completely sucks in practice and Wade wants to sit him down, he can't just bring him into the office and do it, he has to walk him around the PMAC and across the street and it's ridiculous. Also ridiculous is the weight room, which they share with the Olympic sports. How are the basketball players going to get serious about lifting weights when they'd rather hit on the gymnasts or the volleyball players in there? They're going to need a facilities upgrade to handle all of that.

10. Look for a completely different experience in the PMAC under this guy. He's hands-on with everything. The stupid kiss-cam is going to be gone, the student section is going to become a thing again, they will aggressively market basketball on a grass roots basis, this guy will be out hustling to make LSU hoops matter in the community. People have been talking about doing this ever since Dale Brown left; this is the first one who actually has a plan to do it and he's apparently bringing a guy from VCU who is a guru where this is concerned.

That's more or less what I've got. By year two I think this guy will very clearly be a superstar. If he does anything with the team he's got I'd be surprised.