Wade’s 1st season at LSU continues tonight in NIT
Tennessee’s Rick Barnes made Southeastern Conference basketball history this winter by becoming the first coach to take a team picked 13th in the preseason to the league championship, which his Volunteers shared with Auburn.
The coach of the team picked last in the SEC last October hasn’t fared too poorly, either.
Will Wade is 17-14 in his debut year at LSU, which will continue its season tonight by hosting Louisiana-Lafayette in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament. The former coach of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is the first to guide a team picked 14th in the SEC to the postseason.
“It’s a pretty good accomplishment for our group,” Wade said this week. “From where we came from and not winning a whole lot last year and having a pretty poor season, to get to the NIT is a good step forward. It’s obviously not our goal and it’s not where we want to be moving forward, but for this group this year, it’s a good step.”
LSU missed out on postseason play for two consecutive seasons, declining an NIT bid in 2016 and bottoming out to a 10-21 record last year that included a 2-16 mark in SEC play. Wade’s first season in Baton Rouge has contained seven victories over teams in the 2018 NCAA tournament, including season sweeps of Arkansas and Texas A&M and
a neutral-site triumph over eventual Big Ten tournament champ Michigan.
The Tigers will face a ULL squad that is 27-6 overall and won the Sun Belt regular season with a 16-2 record but got bounced in the league semifinals.
“They’ve got a very good team,” Wade said. “They start a point guard who transferred from South Carolina, a 2-guard who transferred from BYU, a 3-man who transferred from Southern Cal and a 4-man who transferred from Missouri.
A couple of those kids were top-100 players coming out of high school, so they’ve got very good players and are well-coached.
“It will be an emotionally charged game, so we’re going to have to bring it.”
LSU has the nation’s No. 4 recruiting class for 2018, according to 247Sports.com. Yahoo Sports reported in late February that the NCAA has been looking into LSU’s recruiting practices for several months, but the school
announced there was no active NCAA investigation and Wade said there has been “zero contact” from NCAA officials.
Tonight will be Wade’s first NIT game as a head coach. He took the Mocs to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament in 2014 and guided Virginia Commwealth to the NCAA tournament the past two seasons.
“This is definitely progress in our program,” he said.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.