Pear needs some help

The Pear never played the game

The Orchard is under siege

100% capacity or bust

He's had different assistants...and the defense has been bad throughout. Heiar was here for three years. He came from a program (Wichita St.) that had a reputation for being a tremendous defensive group. It didn't matter at LSU.

It's not the assistants. They just do what the HC wants them to do. It's WADE'S approach that is the problem and until WADE accepts that no amount of assistant coaches will help fix the issue. Wade, by his own admission, wants to run "Chaos"...which is a weird amalgamation of Shaka Smart's "Havoc" at VCU (Something Smart doesn't do much at all anymore at Texas). The problem is Wade's version in kind of the worst of all worlds when it comes to defense. They press, like VCU. But they don't seem to press with any purpose. They aren't trying to trap. It's just kind of a half-assed effort that does nothing but get guys out of position. Then they want to fall back into a matchup zone once the opponent gets past halfcourt. Great...except on many occasions the opponent has so easily beat the half-assed press that they are taking the 3 (sometimes 4) on 2 advantage straight to the goal for an easy dunk/layup or a kickout to a WIDE open 3 point shooter.

On the occasions they get the opportunity to "matchup"...they are generally running around lost. Then, on the occasions when they do get in good guarding position they lose it by trying to force a steal rather than simply just defending. Numerous times last night UK was running a ball screen with two LSU defenders in the area. LSU had it defended relatively well. Nonetheless, Smart (or the other guards) would leave their man (whom they had covered) to try to sneak in for a backside steal. When he didn't get it, it left 3 guarding 1 and all it took was one pass to either find an open shooter or get LSU in rotation hell where just simple ball movement by the opponent lead to an easy bucket.

Dating back even to his first HC job at Chattanooga Wade believes TO HIS CORE that the best defense is to create steals/turnovers at all costs. Locking in and playing strong defense to force tough shots is NOT what he wants...and it is KILLING his teams on the defensive end. LSU is actually one of the better teams in the country this season in getting steals....and they are still TERRIBLE defensively.

If LSU would just lock in and defend. Something they have shown they can do on the rare occasions they aren't hunting for steals at all costs. Then their defense would be REMARKABLY better. But that is not what Wade wants or believes in. So unless and until he has a come to Jesus moment about his philosophy nothing will change.

Yep, he needs a PG and one or two big men and that can protect the rim. A real shooter would be nice to have also...someone that can be set up to shoot 3 ptrs. It is too much of the game today to not have at least one.

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Dating back even to his first HC job at Chattanooga Wade believes TO HIS CORE that the best defense is to create steals/turnovers at all costs. Locking in and playing strong defense to force tough shots is NOT what he wants...and it is KILLING his teams on the defensive end. LSU is actually one of the better teams in the country this season in getting steals....and they are still TERRIBLE defensively.

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Great post. It's 100% true that he doesn't understand that simply using the versatile athletes he has to switch everything and contest shots is the way most elite programs play defense. If he would just do that, his teams would have a great chance to reach their potential...but he doesn't.

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The Pear never played the game

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So guys who never played cant be good coaches? You know this has been proven wrong?

It’s not about him being a bad coach because he didn’t play, take for example the Alabama game, there were no household changes in approach on defense nor on offense. It hurts in the sense of recognition of what your opponent is doing to you and how to adjust to offset that. His defensive philosophy and approach, we all know, is horrible. You don’t have to look far and see his shortcomings in his press philosophy and his rotations within his half court man to man defense. People who didn’t play can learn how to implement plays from watching videos of other coaches offenses/defenses but it’s about being able to get them to do it correctly with all the intricate details that gain you advantages, how to run variances off of every set you have so the defense doesn’t predetermine what’s coming and this is where he lacks. Whether it’s from a lack of demanding excellence and precision in execution, attention to detail or his lack of knowledge, he’s missing the boat some ( not tremendously ). if people know basketball you have to admit he’s lacking and needs to get better and I think that is what most on here want. There are some outliers that think he’s total garbage and should be fired but I don’t think the majority here feel that way. I’m not putting all the blame on him, some of the discrepancies and deficiencies are because the players aren’t fundamentally sound and maybe he preaches to them about this but he ultimately has to enforce it and demand excellence.