Now That Teams Have “Figured Out” LSU’s Defensive Weaknesses, Will Wade Says it's Time for Change

Wade says LSU needs more help on the boards, improved rotations to work out defensive kinks

It all started with the Vanderbilt game two weeks ago. LSU strolled into Nashville riding a 10-game winning streak and were thoroughly dismantled on the defensive end of the floor. 

Will Wade even said in media interviews following the game that the blueprint was out on how to attack the Tigers that had come to be known as the “Cardiac Cats.” Since that loss to the Commodores the LSU defense hasn’t been able to adjust, allowing 91 points in a loss to Auburn and 88 in a loss to Alabama on Saturday.

In the loss to Auburn, LSU allowed 18 threes and that was even after a 5-for-18 start in the first half from Auburn. Against Alabama, the Crimson Tide drained 13 more threes on a perplexed LSU defense.

Wade said half of the threes Alabama made were self inflicted wounds an area that is fully in LSU's control and needs to clean up against No. 10 Kentucky on Tuesday night.

"We just get put in rotation and I mean they hit three threes on ball side help, they hit four threes off of offensive rebound threes,' Wade said.  "There's seven right there and we should easily be able to take away five of those seven but we help from the wrong spots."

The four threes made off of offensive rebounds is something Wade talked at length about Monday during his press conference. He says LSU finds itself far too often trying to rebound a ball with only one or two guys as opposed to rebounding as a team.

"Our guards have to rebound better," Wade said. "Javonte had one rebound at Auburn and two against Alabama and he's a big guard so he's got to help us more. Days needs to stay out of foul trouble so he can help us rebound better. It's gotta be team rebounding and not just one on one. We're just running in there and not calculating things right."

The defensive struggles, Wade said, stem from SEC opponents "figuring out" what LSU is doing and are attacking the two and three guys that struggle with rotations. 

"They know where our weak spots are, it's to attack the same two or three people over and over again," Wade said. "It's not necessarily that those are the people that get scored on but that's how we get put in rotation and get put behind the play and then we get scored on."

That all starts with what Vanderbilt was able to do to the LSU defense on Feb. 5.

"Coach [Jerry] Stackhouse did a very good job of exposing some of our weakest links," Wade said. "So we've now got to go back and change a few things and try to disguise it again.  I knew that the book was out on us a little bit, they were able to isolate the same two or three guys almost the entire game. That's what every team has pretty much done since then."

With the matchup against the Wildcats now just 24 hours away, these aren't quick and easy fixes for LSU but more so just weaknesses that this particular team has. 

Wade said that it's something that will be corrected as quick as possible but that it's not like LSU is the only team with weaknesses.

"Our margin for error is not very big," Wade said. "I think we've had some slippage in some areas. We've been trying to correct it, but we just haven't been able to get it fully corrected yet, but we're no different than most other teams in college basketball. We're still a good team but we've got to do better on our improvements on the defensive side."