LSU Basketball Rolling in Right Direction With Postseason "Reset"

LSU enters postseason play and all of the teams are on even footing. For the Tigers and their NCAA tournament hopes, the latest quad one win over Alabama has likely locked up anywhere from a five to a seven seed for the program.

But this week's SEC tournament doesn't come without its fair share of difficult maneuvers, particularly considering who the Tigers will potentially play. LSU's Thursday afternoon matchup in the tournament will be either Missouri or Ole Miss, whose respective NET rankings are 153 and 108.

Any loss the Tigers accumulate on a neutral court, which is where the SEC tournament will be played, to teams with NET rankings in between 101-200 is a quad three loss. LSU has been very good in quad three opportunities, going 6-1 this season with the lone loss coming to the Rebels on their home floor.

A loss on that opening day could negatively affect their seeding in the NCAA tournament because of how much weight a quad three loss carries. So in other words the Tigers will really need to pour a lot into this first game on Thursday. But the good news for the Tigers is they have a little momentum after going toe to toe with Arkansas and picking up a big win over Alabama on Saturday to close out the regular season.

"It's going to help our seeding a lot. We're probably in the best situation we could be in at this point and for the NCAA tournament because it's a quad 1 win at home," Days said of the Alabama win. "Definitely for our confidence as well. B-Murray is playing great, Tari is playing great, great team win. We just have a lot of pieces to win."

"I thought we played pretty good basketball again," Wade said. "All of the records reset now, we've played the toughest schedule in the league by far and so hopefully that'll pay dividends for us as we get into tournament time. We are gonna have to be cleaner in the six minute game particularly defensively."

There are still some very valid concerns with this group, most important how they finish games. Two times last week the Tigers fouled at half court in the closing seconds of the game with a lead, one leading to a loss and the other leading to overtime which LSU was ultimately able to overcome.

"We still made quite a few mistakes," Wade said. "We're an aggressive team and so it's hard to kind of dial it back. We still got to them with our pressure but there are some things we can to get better. We're gonna keep plugging away, keep working."

The team now enters the postseason, a time where the Tigers really need to rely on their veterans to show them the way and the recent play from Darius Days, Xavier Pinson and Tari Eason shows this group is starting to round back into form at the most important time of the year.

Days is coming off a last regular season week where he scored 19 points on the road at Arkansas and followed it up with 24 points in a win over the Crimson Tide, shooting an efficient 15-of-27 from the floor in those two contests. He by far has the most postseason experience having seen most of everything from buzzer beater March Madness to blowout losses that have cut seasons short.

If the Tigers can get this version of Days moving forward into tournament play, this is a team that can make some real noise over the next several weeks.

"He's been rock solid for our program, done everything we've asked him to do," Wade said. "He deserved to have a great game, he's worked hard and earned it and we're gonna miss him. He's been an ambassador for our program on and off the court. As good of a player he is, off the court he's even better. We haven't had one issue with him in four years, not one and that's one of the highest compliments you can give."

This is a hard team to pin down just in terms of what you're gonna get on a night to night basis. At its best, this is a group that can contend with almost any team in the country. It's been a while since the Tigers were at their best but this team really does look like its playing closer to that level in the most crucial time of the year.