Will Wade got a big piece of news earlier this week when Top 50 point guard Tremont Waters committed to LSU and will play for the Tigers in 2017-18. Waters, Connecticut’s Gatorade Player of the Year, was the nation’s top rated player still left on the board, after he received his release from Georgetown earlier this spring.
As New England Recruiting Report noted in their excellent breakdown of Waters’ decision to play for the Tigers, the point guard has been a playmaker since he first stepped onto the court as a freshman in the NEPSAC, considered by many the premier prep school league in the country. Just check out what Adam Finkelstein had to say after Waters (and backcourt mate – current Iona guard – Shadrac Casimir) led South Kent on a come-from-behind win in his first showcase event, the National Prep Showcase, back in 2013:
From there, the sky was the limit. He’d proved that he could play with the big boys, and set out to improve his game with a focused determination. By the end of his freshman season, it was clear that he would play Division 1 basketball in the future…and he still had 3 more years to develop. It was also clear that he wouldn’t let his talent get to his head, as he told us he still had plenty to learn to become a great point guard.
And did he learn. After that first high school season in NEPSAC’s AAA, he teamed up with current UConn point guard Christian Vital on Team Scan, and when they went undefeated at the 2014 Northeast Hoops Festival, it was clear that Waters could be a playmaker no matter what type of competition he faced.
He continued adding to his game, and importantly started to gain strength, allowing him to compete at the rim and in the paint more consistently with athletes who would soon be banging at the highest levels of Division 1 hoops. His jump shot improved. He became the floor general every coach wants their point guard to be. By the end of his sophomore season at South Kent, he had already entered the 1,000 Point club, an incredible achievement for any basketball player made more remarkable that he did it while playing against the best of the best. The spring of 2015 brought his debut on the ESPN 60 list (at #36) and he was squarely on the national radar for that AAU season, where he continued to showcase his shot making ability.
He was soon being ranked by every national outlet and taking visits to programs like Duke, ensuring that all his hard work would pay off. He had succeeded in allowing his talent to flourish, giving himself every opportunity to realize his personal goals through hard work and dedication to his craft. He completed his junior season with South Kent, leaving that program after scoring over 1,600 points in three seasons. Running with Expressions Elite for the summer of 2016, it was evident just how far his game had come, flashing his ability to finish tough shots and an uncanny knack for getting the ball to his teammates for easy scoring opportunities.
He finished as the #32 ranked player, #8 point guard, in the Class of 2017 by ESPN. Now, he’ll attend LSU, with a coach in Will Wade that relies on his point guard to make plays for himself and others, as he did with JeQuan Lewis while at VCU the past two seasons.
If the past is any indication, in Tremont Waters, Wade is getting a point guard as reliable as they come.
