LSU coach Will Wade opened his presser on Monday by apologizing to Tiger fans for his behavior and his technical foul in the 74-66 loss to Alabama.

The technical foul came after a freshman guard Tremont Waters’ three pointer in the second half to cut the lead to five but Wade had been unhappy with a couple of different calls the referee crew made.

“I let my emotions get the best of me,” Wade said. “You can’t act like that and it’s not the way to represent our school, our program or our state. I’m always going to fight for our players, but you can’t go overboard.”

Wade sent a text to the coordinator of officials but has yet to hear back from him or the SEC.

Rebounding needs improvement

Wade addressed the team’s recent struggles in rebounding the ball in conference play.  The Tigers were out-rebounded 40-24 against Alabama on Saturday and are now facing one of the SEC’s best rebounding teams in Georgia.

“Just about every team we play, they’re bigger than us,” Wade said. “We have 6’3” three men guarding 6’8” three men. If you do that you have to take them out low.”

After showing a knack for offensive rebounding in non-conference play, LSU has seen those numbers decline since entering league play.  Wade said that has more to do with schematics than a lack of hustle.

“We’ve only been sending two guys,” Wade said. “In non-conference we were sending three or even four guys to attack the offensive glass.”

Looking ahead to Georgia

LSU is now 0-2 at home in conference play but 2-0 on the road. Wade says the plan is to switch things up for home games to take away potential distractions from the players.

Wade mentioned after the Alabama loss, the idea of possibly moving the players to a hotel the night before the game but that has not been confirmed.

“We’ve got a pretty good way about us on the road,” Wade said. “We’ll try to mimic a lot of things we’d do on the road.”

Wade had high praise for Georgia head coach Mark Fox and the way he has run that program.

“From what I’ve seen he’s about as good as they come,” Wade said. “Every single one of their games looks the exact same. He controls the game and the game is played on his terms.”

LSU will take on the Bulldogs Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the PMAC.