Will Wade, LSU basketball won’t overlook Louisiana Tech | LSU

Will Wade’s demeanor wasn’t cheery.

The LSU coach entered the locker room after a 41-point home win over Texas Southern on Friday, unhappy. The overall performance didn’t reach his high expectations despite not finalizing his roster until late in the offseason.

Wade and his players are striving for excellence. They also know the college basketball world will be monitoring Saturday’s matchup against preseason-ranked No. 15 Gonzaga (2-0), the first true measure of how seriously the Tigers should be regarded nationally.

Star point guard Donovan Dent was asked how his team won’t get ahead of itself before it faces Louisiana Tech (2-0) at 7 p.m. Monday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

“I think coach will make it pretty easy for us to lock in,” said the UCLA transfer, who has 20 assists to zero turnovers after two games. “He wasn’t too happy with us today, so I think we’ll be pretty locked in Monday for sure.”

While LSU (2-0) expectedly dominated Texas Southern and LSU New Orleans, Wade said his group isn’t “good enough to look ahead.” The Tigers weren’t efficient enough offensively on Friday — making 15 of 25 free throws and 5 of 22 3-pointers. They also matched Texas Southern with 14 turnovers.

LSU clobbered its lesser opponent in the paint due to a size and talent disparity. Wade was surprised to be asked about Gonzaga after Friday’s game; he interjected mid-question to say his team can’t afford to not focus on Louisiana Tech, despite the Gonzaga contest lurking.

“Shoot, you watched us play tonight; we got a big one Monday against Louisiana Tech,” he said. “Louisiana Tech’s gonna play hard. I mean, these guys are gonna play hard, and they’re the best of these three outfits that we’ve played. So we can’t worry about Gonzaga … It’s gonna take everything we got to beat Louisiana Tech the way we’ve been playing.”

Louisiana Tech (2-0) beat Kent State by 10 points in its opener and defeated Division-II Arkansas-Monticello 76-17 on Thursday. The point total allowed was the fewest in program history since 1935.

LSU will likely be the most fearsome opponent Louisiana Tech will see in the regular season, as it doesn’t have any other high-major opponents scheduled.

The Tigers want to use this opportunity to get a couple of their important players a successful outing before facing Gonzaga.

LSU’s starting shooting guard, Skyy Clark, hasn’t scorched the nets from 3-point range as expected. The 6-foot-2 UCLA transfer has missed all 11 of his 3s through two games.

Brice Dessert, Wade’s starting center, didn’t play well last game despite scoring 9 points on 4-of-6 shooting against Texas Southern. LSU was outscored by 6 points in the 12 minutes the 7-footer was on the court. This followed a season opener where he had four turnovers and fouled out in 18 minutes.

Wade said that Dessert is adjusting to the speed of college basketball compared to Europe and that he’s confident he’ll play better.

LSU’s coach wants to believe his team of newcomers can improve quickly. However, progress cannot be hoped upon. Wade expects their shortcomings to be corrected against Louisiana Tech before turning any attention to Gonzaga.

“You can’t accept in winning what you wouldn’t accept in losing,” Wade said. “Some of the mistakes we made will get us beat. And the first two teams we’ve played are not capable of taking advantage of those mistakes. So the teams we play from here on out are going to be fully capable of taking advantage of these mistakes. And so it’s on us to get this cleaned up sooner rather than later.”