With LSU Basketball Turning Focus to 2020, Coach Will Wade Believes it Could be Best Team to Date

Tigers underclassmen to make NBA decisions in the next few weeks

There's plenty of work to be done as LSU now sets it sights on the 2020 season with a new cavalry of incoming players that hope to propel the basketball program to new heights. 

In an exclusive interview with LSU Country on Monday, coach Will Wade touched on just what the coming weeks and months will be like as the Tigers turn the page to what should be an exciting year inside the PMAC. Before we get to the incoming talent, LSU has a number of underclassmen from the 2019 team that have intriguing decisions ahead of them.

There's freshman forward Trendon Watford, sophomore guard Javonte Smart and sophomore forwards Darius Days and Emmitt Williams who all could theoretically declare for the NBA draft. Wade said the next week or so will be about evaluating and discussing the best course of action for each player before any decision making comes to fruition.

"They're all thinking NBA," Wade said with a chuckle. "We're going to talk with everybody in the coming weeks and gather the best information, but I do think, for the most part, our kids have made very, very good decisions because they've made very informed decisions.

"You want to make decisions based on fact, not on emotion and so it's our job to help gather facts and help gather statistics and help gather the things that help our guys make the right decision."

If even one or two of those players decide to come back to the program, it'll be an added bonus to a roster that will be going under some significant turnover. With seven players either signed or committed in 2020, LSU currently sports the No. 6 recruiting class in the country.

Wade has signed five-star guard Cam Thomas, three-star Jalen Cooks and three-star big man Bradley Ezewiro while also receiving commitments from four-star guard Eric Gaines and four-star forward Mwani Wilkinson. Former Georgetown forward Josh Leblanc and UCLA big man Shareef O'Neal have also elected to transfer to LSU for 2020.

"We feel really good about those guys. We've got Cam, who's just an absolute scorer and Jalen Cook and Bradley," Wade said. "Cook's gonna be a really good guard for us along with Cam, and then Josh Leblanc who we already have here. If we'd had him this year, we would've been a totally different team, he makes a huge impact for us. He's as good a defensive player we've had since we've been here. So we're going to add some more guys, and we feel good about the group we got coming in to mix in with some of the guys that are gonna be staying."

In addition to the seven players the Tigers are bringing on board, Wade said the program is still in contact with a few players on the 2020 recruiting cycle and hopes to bring in a few more players, though he did acknowledge that the time frame of everything could be pushed back.

"We certainly want to continue to shape our roster, I just think it's going to push back the time that your roster is settled," Wade said. "I think it may be July now before you have a clean idea of exactly what everything's gonna look like."

Wade certainly envisions a snowball effect where the NBA draft process could be pushed back which in turn will ripple down to recruiting and which returning players could ultimately decide to come back.

"I mean there's just a lot of stuff that everybody's in the unknown and so we've just got to have as many irons in the fire as we can to figure it out," Wade said.

So with all of the expected roster turnover, 2020 feels like a turning point year for the program under Wade. If the stars align the right way, it very well could be the best LSU basketball team we've seen in quite some time.

"Certainly we feel like we're moving in the right direction. We're gonna have a very good team and a deep team, which is important," Wade said. "We're certainly going to have a few more pieces next year and we're excited about that. That's what you want as a coach, to put the pieces to the puzzle together to make it look good. I think we will have a very, very good team next year and we're looking forward to that."