On Marlon Taylors health Hes going to be out a while; its going to be another few weeks. We are going to go back and look at something in the foot. He still has some issues in his foot that we need to get addressed so I think the earliest he will be back is in two to three weeks. I think our goal would be to have him back by the East Tennessee State game. I think that would be a realistic goal for him to come back in the middle of December but if not then right after Christmas. We are going to be without him for an extended period. We will shut him down and recalibrate on a few things.

On Trendon Watfords performance Trendon (Watford) is off to a really good start. Every time you get a five-star kid, everyone says this and this. You look at how he stacks up against the other guys in the country and he is way out performing the other guys that are supposed to be in his class. I think he is playing extremely well, obviously we need to clean up some of the stuff at the free throw line and some of the turnovers. I think a lot of it is him playing in tighter spaces. He is playing like I said, with the adjustment of the speed, so it takes some time. (VCU) is as tough as environment as we have played in.

"You put a freshman out there at VCU, it is not easy, it is not high school. I think he has adjusted well and there are certainly some other ways we can help him get the ball closer to the basket a little easier without him having to dribble it eight times to get down there which increases the margin for error. It is part of the reason we started him at the three the other night.

"It puts our biggest lineup out there and Charles (Manning) is so smart he sees thing really well coming off the bench. It helps him get in the flow of the game, I thought he played better in that role. Theres some mismatches we can take advantage of at the three that we sometimes cant take advantage of when he is playing at the post spot. I think he is off to a very good start. He is going to continue to get better and continue to move forward.

On the players in the recruiting class Jalen (Cook) has such a good personality. He committed to us first. Hes got a great pride about LSU, hes got a great pride about Louisiana and representing the state and representing the boot. Hes been to the Under Armour camp, he was at NBA Top 100 camp. It is the same 150 players that go to all the same stuff together.

"Whether its USA Basketball, the camps, the top 100, its the same 100-125 guys that go to everything together so they develop relationships and get to know each other. (Jalen) Cook has a good personality, so people like to be around him. Certainly, having Bradley (Ezewiro) there at Oak Hill didnt hurt anything. Bradley is someone who is aggressive. Hes aggressive on the court, hes aggressive how he goes and gets rebounds. That is really his nature.

We have to sign a big class. We have three signed and we have to sign another three or four before its all done. We have some work ahead of us and we need to add some big guys. We need to add a wing that can help us replace what Marlon (Taylor) brings us. We need to add another ball handler, but we have some good irons in the fire. All those guys certainly know each other and are very close. Any time you get a high-level player like Cameron (Thomas), (Jalen) Cook and Bradley (Ezewiro), other guys want to play with those guys.

On other teams focusing on playing LSU We probably snuck around on some folks last year. I dont think people just circle LSU on their schedule for basketball. I think certainly there are other programs in our league that get that. I think if you ask the average SEC fan who won the regular season SEC title last year, they probably wouldnt know.

"That stuff moves on as time does. I think you develop a target more as you go through the season and you pile up wins. I think at the end of the year we had a target on our back when we were winning and we were a threat to win the SEC. It is our job to regain the target. You have to embrace it, if you have it, you have to embrace it. You can run from it or you can run to it and you better run to it. We have to get to the point where we have that.

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Everything Will Wade said ahead of LSU-UMBC - 247Sports

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