LSU Basketball Preparing For Extended Postseason Road Trip

LSU leaves for Nashville on Wednesday and might not be back to Baton Rouge for quite a long time. The Tigers open SEC tournament play on Friday evening against either Ole Miss or South Carolina, where they hope to win three games in three days.

From there, the program will head straight to Indianapolis for the NCAA tournament and await their seeding placement. NCAA tournament play starts up March 18 and will conclude on April 5 with the championship game.

If LSU hopes to find success in the postseason, it will be a weeks long business trip the likes of which the players have never experienced before. That's why going in with a positive mindset has been the preaching point from the coaching staff to the players.

“The message is to be the most excited team to be there at both tournaments," freshman guard Cam Thomas said. "If we go in there with the mindset that we want to be there, great things will happen. We go in there with a bad mindset, bad things will happen. I feel like our message is going to just be the most energetic team and good things will come out of it.”

Coach Will Wade has talked about the strides made with this program but the one box that remains unchecked is a significant run in the SEC tournament. The Tigers have gone 0-2 under Wade in the tournament.

The program has had success against both Ole Miss and South Carolina this season, going a perfect 2-0 against both teams. But Wade knows better than most that tournament basketball is different.

“It may be good, may limit some of the distractions that you can have and we can just stay together," Wade said. "Tournament basketball is different. We’ve talked to the team about kind of the rules of the tournament. What happens in a tournament setting whether it’s the SEC or the NCAA tournament. You just gotta stick to your formula and execute your formula as best you can.”

Guard Javonte Smart and forward Darius Days are the only players on the roster who have postseason experience and therefore have direct knowledge on the kind of atmosphere to expect. Both were freshmen during LSU's run to the Sweet Sixteen back in 2018 and had big moments in the tournament.

Smart knows how precious these moments are and has been telling the younger players on the team to most importantly have fun with the next few weeks while also remaining focused on the task at hand.

"Just telling them to have fun. Down this road is going to be real fun. I just want them to enjoy every moment of it," Smart said. "We don't get times like this back. Not everybody makes it this far down the season. I just want to congratulate our team for stepping up and getting this far, but we got a lot more to accomplish."

"It's crazy, me being a veteran I haven't even been a part of postseaosn play. So this is new to me. But I'd say, I’ve gotten better at being a leader," forward Trendon Watford said. "Just trying to keep doing what I’m doing to try to lead my guys and I think these past few games we've turned the corner as a team as a whole.

Though Watford might not have the postseason experience of his veteran counterparts, his voice in the locker room is well respected and knows what kind of mindset the players need to have.

"I've just been preaching to the guys that we got to keep doing what we're doing: Stay together, keep playing together," Watford said. "If we come out with the most energy every night it'll be hard to beat us. I think we're finally starting to realize that and like I said, our future is going to be bright together and it's going to be a good postseason for us."