If you’ve watched any of LSU’s first five games this season, you have probably noticed freshman point guard Tremont Waters as one of the Tigers brightest stars.
Through five games Waters is averaging 20 points and five assists per game, while shooting 55 percent from the field.
A statistic posted by college basketball expert Ken Pomeroy has Waters listed second nationally in offensive rating with a 130.9 score.
But it’s his off the court leadership that has impressed coach Will Wade the most. “He is very mature,” Wade said. “I was really proud of the way he responded in the Marquette game.”
Over Thanksgiving week, LSU participated in the Maui Invitational where Waters was named to the All-Tournament team. Waters scored 21 points against Michigan and followed that up two nights later by scoring a career-high 39 points in a losing effort to Marquette.
Waters always had a basketball in his hands when he was younger, and that continued in Maui when he borrowed a ball from the local high school because he wasn’t used to that particular brand.
“I just used it for the night so I could get a better feel for it,” Waters said. “I slept with it and played with it all night. It was like my girlfriend.”
Waters set an LSU Maui record with the 39-point effort against Marquette and was just four points shy of tying Adam Morrison’s 43 point tournament record back in 2005 for Gonzaga.
“It was a great feeling,” Waters said. “I feel like I played pretty well, and it gives the coaches more of a trust in me because I guess I’m breaking records.”
After the Michigan game, Wade said he didn’t know if he had ever been a part of a locker room that happy after a regular season win. Waters echoed those sentiments and said that game will be forever implanted in his mind.
“It felt surreal,” Waters said. “Everyone had goosebumps going into the game. We played hard and it felt different, and I had never been a part of something that big.”
Despite having the top two plays on SportsCenter after the 77-75 win over Michigan, Waters was unable to see them right away because Wade took the player’s phones after the game.
“He didn’t want us to be on social media looking at everything,” Waters said. “We got to see the SportsCenter stuff the next day but he wanted us to stay focused.”
Before the season began, sophomore guard Skylar Mays was confident Waters would be a fan favorite in the Bayou and he has certainly delivered on that statement.
In the loss against Notre Dame, Waters was matched up with senior point guard Matt Farrell for most of the game. It was a good experience for Waters because he got to see how a more experienced college player performed differently.
“He sees the game five plays ahead from what I saw,” Waters said. “He’s very confident and poised, while not letting the defense stir up and make him do things he doesn’t want to do.”
“Tre is awesome,” Mays said. “He’s just doing a great job, playing with a lot of confidence so we’re trying to keep him going because he’s playing so well.”
Waters biggest takeaway from the Maui tournament was he learned how to be more of a leader.
“I feel like my teammates have more confidence in me,” Waters said. “I also have a lot more confidence in myself playing the way I did. It was a teaching experience in the losses because I couldn’t show my teammates that I was upset.”