LSU Basketball Projected to Finish No. 4 in SEC by Sports Illustrated

Tigers awaiting draft decisions from Smart and Watford, Days set time return

LSU is starting to get it's roster together for the upcoming 2020 season as players are reporting in small bunches in an attempt to be as safe and healthy as possible. Coach Will Wade and company bring in one of the more exciting groups to the SEC this season, with seven new players coming aboard. 

Early projections have been favorable to the Tigers in 2020 as they've popped up on numerous top-25 preseason projections. On Friday, Sports Illustrated released its conference preview, expecting LSU to finish No. 4 in the SEC, behind Kentucky, Florida and Tennessee.

The Tigers await decisions from Trendon Watford, Javonte Smart and Darius Days, all of whom are testing the draft waters. Regardless, LSU faces a tall task regrouping without do-it-all guard Skylar Mays. Freshmen Cam Thomas and Eric Gaines are expected to step into immediate backcourt minutes. Georgetown transfer Josh LeBlanc, UCLA transfer Shareef O’Neal and freshman Mwani Wilkinson should form one of the more athletic frontcourts in the conference. Still, the lack of a creative playmaker on the roster poses a challenge. There’s certainly enough talent to make it work, and getting one or two more players back should help stabilize this situation. -Jeremy Woo

It's true a lot of the potential success for LSU hinges on the return of a few of its veteran stars. The decisions from Watford, Smart and Days are expected to be completed in the next few hours. A report from CBS Sports Jon Rothstein states that Days has pulled his name from the NBA Draft and will return to school.

Days has been back on campus for a few weeks now, working out and getting some shots up preparing for the new year. Watford is the trickiest case as he's on the draft bubble as of now and recently was invited to the NBA combine, along with teammate Skylar Mays.

If all three elect to return, LSU would sport one of the deeper rosters in the conference. While it wouldn’t be surprising to see Watford leave for the pros, the uncertainty around whether there will be a “Summer League” or what the next NBA season will look like, might make it more prudent for him to return to Baton Rouge for another year of development.

After losing out on big man Moussa Cisse, LSU was in dire need of a rim protecting big man, a position it lacked during the 2019 season. The Tigers signed Washington transfer Bryan Penn-Johnson to round out the 2020 class, who should provide stability to the front court. 

"I think we're close to having a great great team that will compete at the top of the SEC and compete in the top 10 to 15 nationally and be one of those teams that's in the hunt," Wade said back in May. "If it all comes together like we hope, we'd have all the pieces in place that we would need to be a major, major player on the national scene."