Will Wade explains decision not to move Justice Williams to full-time point guard
Justice Williams enrolled at LSU early after re-classifying to the Class of 2021, but hasn’t jumped off the stat sheet much this year. Tigers coach Will Wade doesn’t seem worried, though — but don’t expect a position change anytime soon.
Williams is averaging 2.3 points, 1.1 rebounds and 0.9 assists in 13.4 minutes per game through 14 contests. He’s primarily a shooting guard, but a reporter asked Wade if a move to point guard could be in the cards.
The coach explained why he won’t do that.
“Justice is more of a combo guard than a true point,” Wade said Feb. 7. “If we played him at full-time point guard right now, it wouldn’t be good for anybody, including him. He’s getting better, he’s playing well. He’s done some really, really good things for us. But, I mean, he should be playing high school basketball right now, and we’ve got him playing in the best conference in the country. So I think he’s done a very admirable job. I think he’s done a very, very good job.
“But you’ve got to understand, too, he also got here in August. He didn’t go through the summer with us, he didn’t go through strength and conditioning with us. There’s a lot of stuff he just didn’t go through. So asking him to play full-time point guard for us right now would not be doing the right thing by him or our team. I can promise you, what we’re putting out there [are] the best options we’ve got right now. it might not seem that way, but it’s the best we’ve got. If we had some other stuff we could do to shake it up, we’d certainly try it out. But I think Justice has done a very, very nice job.”
More on LSU, Will Wade
Those comments came on the heels of LSU’s second three-game losing streak in a seven-game span. Since then, the Tigers have rattled off three straight wins, including a victory over Georgia on Wednesday night. They’re now 19-7 overall and 7-6 in SEC play with the conference tournament coming around the corner.
It appears the team responded well after Wade called out his players for entitlement.
“It’s funny … one of our kids was like, ‘Well, when do they announce the brackets?’” Wade said. “I said, ‘Announce the brackets? What are you talking about?’ Here’s what’s happened a little bit — and this is what’s happened with the team. You’ve always heard me say appreciation’s the currency of success. So when your appreciation and your entitlement gets out of whack, we just think we’re entitled to make the tournament. We’re not entitled to anything. Alright? You have to earn it. The thing’s hard to get into.”