Why the Full Court Press is the Identity of LSU Basketball's Defense

Tigers host Ole Miss Tuesday with hopes of getting back to what has made defense so elite in 2021

Will Wade has noticed a troubling trend in his team over the last few weeks. As the Tigers have lost four out of six and dropped to the bottom of the top 25 standings, Wade is seeing a leak defensively in the way LSU is playing.

Defense has been this team's calling card from the very beginning of the year and over the last few games the program is setting some dangerous precedents. For the second time in four games the Tigers allowed an opponent to score 70+ points in the loss to TCU.

The last five opponents have scored at least 60 points a contest after the program came out by holding nine of the first 13 opponents to under that threshold for the non-conference part of the season. But it's been a different story in SEC play and there are a number of factors contributing to the recent drop in play.

"Every game we've been getting a little bit worse defensively and part of its we've got guys out there a long time," Wade said. "We've gotta get better defensively."

For Wade there's one key to LSU's defense and the reason it's had historic success when clicking. The team's ability to get into the full court press is the single most important area to how the Tigers defend as teams score an average of 0.69 points per possession when LSU is able to get into the press.

When the Tigers pick teams up full court, they're hellacious in forcing turnovers, shot clock violations and completely get teams out of whack offensively. But every passing game over the last few weeks, LSU is using the press less and less.

As an example, TCU on Saturday was able to score 1.17 points per possession according to Wade as the Tigers have by every game seemed to use its full court press less and less. 

"The real trick to our defense is getting in the press. Our half court is solid but it ain't nothing special without that press," Wade said. "We get them into shot clock violations, force you to take tough shots at the end of the clock. We didn't get into the press enough."

So why is that the case? The most glaring reason for Wade and the team is not having all of the players available. When LSU had its full eight man rotation for the first 15 games of the season, the defense was a well oiled machine. Guys knew exactly what their responsibilities were in the construct of the defense and full court press and as a result, the team was forcing turnovers and getting out in transition at an extremely high rate. 

But with the injuries to Xavier Pinson, Darius Days and little nicks and bruises to other players on the team, it has forced Wade to back off the aggressive press in recent weeks. When everything was in lock step, players were ideally getting 27 to 30 minutes a contest, keeping everyone fresh.

"One guy being out affects a lot more people than the one guy or the one position. It affects the rotations, practice, a lot of different stuff," Wade said. 

In recent games, because particularly the back court of Eric Gaines and Brandon Murray are having to play upwards of 35 or 36 minutes, Wade has to pick and choose which situations to use the press. The press is what helped LSU narrow a once 16-point deficit to just one in the span of a few minutes against TCU but LSU had to back off at the end of the game.

"The biggest change is we got guys out there too long. I would love to get everybody back healthy and get back to the rotation we had before," Wade said. "Back to eight guys, we played 10 guys the other day and couldn't get in rhythm. We're just not there yet. 

"There's a lot of different components to it, guys not knowing when they're going in because it was so seamless there for 14 or 15 games. It hasn't been that way so we'd like to get back to it sooner rather than later."

The hope is sooner than later LSU is able to get back to full strength and the Tigers are able to get back to that more consistent rotation. However, at this stage in the season Wade knows that's something he can't bank on and faces the very real possibility of having to adjust with different guys hobbled. 

How LSU continues to handle how it uses the full court press will be extremely important to see in the next few weeks.