After firing Johnny Jones, LSU has found their new man in Will Wade. But the question is, what exactly are they getting?
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At 34 years old, Will Wade is now the youngest head coach in the SEC. Mike White (40) and Bryce Drew (42) are the next two youngest head coaches in the Southeastern Conference.
Despite limited basketball success in Baton Rouge, Wade sees LSU as a sleeping giant in college basketball.
Wade has only been a head coach for four seasons, and he has coached his teams to winning records in each of those four seasons. But for a guy with such a small sample size as a head coach, you have to first see where he was as an assistant to get a feel for who he’ll be as a head coach.
Harvard
After serving as the Director of Basketball Operations at his alma mater Clemson, Wade was hired as an assistant coach at Harvard by Tommy Amaker. Amaker has quite the resume, playing and coaching under the great Mike Krzyzewski at Duke.
Amaker was a head coach for 10 years at Seton Hall and then Michigan before settling at Harvard. In Amaker’s 10 seasons with the Crimson, he has led them to four of their five Ivy League titles in the school’s history.
Wade was hired asassistant under Amaker when he arrived at Harvard in 2007, and stayed on his staff until 2009.
Virginia Commonwealth
After Anthony Grant left VCU to take the job at Alabama in 2009, they hired Florida assistant Shaka Smart to be their head man. And after Smart took the job he hired the 27-year-old Wade to join his staff.
Wade was on Smart’s VCU staff for four years from 2009-20013, helping coach the Rams to three NCAA Tournament appearances and the only Final Four in school history.
Chattanooga
As a 31-year-old, Wade was hired as the head coach at Chattanooga. And in two years with the Mocs, Wade led them to 18-15 and 22-10 records. But if it’s any clue on how well he left the program, the Mocs went 29-6 the year after he left.
Virginia Commonwealth
In 2015 Wade returned to VCU, but this time as the head coach. He led the Rams to a 51-20 record and two NCAA Tournament appearances in his two seasons as the head man at VCU. And now he’s on to the SEC.
When you’re making a head coaching hire, you can go after two types of candidates: A proven head coach, or a young guy that’t the next big thing.
Wade comes from an excellent pedigree, but only time will tell if he is the next big thing.