LSU Basketball Hitting Its Stride as Final Third of Conference Play Heats Up

Over the last week, Will Wade has been a bit on edge. The Tigers had lost four of five and were in danger of seeing an extremely promising season go out the window.

Forward Darius Days said the team's mindset really flipped before the Mississippi State win and it started with Wade. Throughout this season, Wade has relinquished control a little bit in terms of the mindset and approach of the players because of the strong leadership that exists on this particular team.

Wade equates to the heightened sense of focus he hammered home with the team.

"I look at it more like there was a singular voice. Sometimes I listen to a lot of people, I'll try a lot of different ideas," Wade said. "But at the end of the day when things aren't going as well as you want it to, you get back to what you know. That's basically what we've done, I've taken back the reins on things."

"He wasn't too happy with us with the last few games we lost and the practices have been a little longer," Days said. "He's been a little more on edge and that helped us with our play on defense, getting out in transition and winning by a big margin."

LSU's win over No. 16 Tennessee proved and accomplished a number of different team goals. It ensured the Tigers' first top 25 win of the season and helped the program jump all the way to No. 27 in the KenPom rankings, dramatically improving its stance in the NCAA Tournament.

But more than anything, the win proved to Wade and the players that this season is one of ebbs and flows, with LSU seemingly hitting its stride at the right time of the year.

"We've been preparing a lot for these types of situations because we know we weren't at our best for the last few weeks," guard Javonte Smart said. "This is a big win, we've got many more to go but I think this is the first step towards where we want to get to."

With an open date in the middle of the week, Wade said the Tigers will have a game scheduled but it's not yet finalized to announce. The team has reached the final third of its conference schedule and Wade did reveal that the midweek game will be another opportunity to capitalize on a Quad 1 win, something that's important for building a strong NCAA tournament resume.

LSU only had two Quad 1 wins before the 78-65 win over Tennessee on Saturday and now have a few upcoming opportunities the team hopes to build on in the coming weeks. The players equated the recent success this go around to better preparation, something that was missing in recent losses to Alabama, Kentucky and even Texas Tech.

In the Texas Tech game in particular, the Tigers were outscored 12-0 in the final 66 seconds of the game to blow a prime opportunity against a top 10 opponent. The win over the Volunteers went much differently as the Tigers went up double digits and maintained that lead through the rest of the game.

Now that the preparation and the focus seems to have been found, it's about getting a little more consistency out of their performances. That'll start with that Quad 1 opportunity midweek and extend to next weekend's game against Auburn.

"The thing about our resume is we don't have any bad losses," Wade said. "You gotta pick up quality wins and this was our third Quad 1 win of the year and that's certainly good and we'll have another chance here midweek. We've gotta keep building off of this, we've still got a lot of work to do and we've gotta finish strong."

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