Despite Recent Slide LSU Basketball Still Firmly in the NCAA Tournament Picture
Lets just start wit the bad which is also the obvious. LSU basketball has dropped four of its last five and are allowing opponents to score 87 points per game in that span.
That alarming number can only be comparable with the 47.5% opponents are shooting from the field and 41.2% they're shooting from three-point range. The defensive effort has been atrocious at times and Will Wade reached his boiling point after Tuesday's loss to Kentucky.
"Keep making the same mistake. Same guy keeps making the same mistake over and over and over again," Wade said. "Same thing happened at Alabama, same thing happened in this game. It's frustrating."
It's a rut that LSU has been unable to climb out of after starting conference play 8-0 that left at one time a two game cushion in the SEC.
But still, all is not lost, in fact it's far from it. While competing for a second straight SEC title seems to have gone out the window with the loss to the Wildcats--who now have a two game lead in the conference standings--LSU is still playing for that ultimate goal of an NCAA tournament bid.
After the Kentucky loss, LSU dropped to No. 31 in the NET rankings, which is the ultimate determining factor in where the seeding for the tournament will be arranged. That No. 31 ranking would likely berth LSU a No. 7 seed in the tournament if the season were to end today.
With five games remaining on the SEC schedule, the Tigers are presented with an opportunity to improve on their recent slippage in the NET. LSU currently only sits behind Kentucky (No. 22) and Auburn (No. 25) in the NET rankings for SEC teams.
The Tigers have away games at South Carolina and Florida in the next week, wins that would help improve LSU's strength of schedule. Florida is currently No. 35 in the NET rankings, the Gamecocks No. 62, but LSU needs to end the season on a positive note, not smothered in losses.
Keep in mind, that's what happened to LSU in 2015 when Ben Simmons was at LSU. The Tigers finished the season 19-14 and 11-7 in conference play. After a quarterfinal win over Tennessee in the SEC Championship that year, the Tigers still needed one more win to get them in the tournament.
Instead that team lost 71-38 to Texas A&M and was left out of the tournament.
Now this 2020 team is still far away from being in that position but it does hammer home the possibility of being left off if this downward trend continues. LSU has lost its last three road games and have three remaining so lets say for the sake of argument they lose all three road games and win the home games against Texas A&M and Georgia.
That would put LSU at 20-11 on the season and 11-7 in conference play and losers of seven of their final 10 games. It would likely take a very good SEC championship appearance to get them in as a eight or nine seed.
Again, this is hypothetical but it's not out of the realm of possibility if these defensive issues continue to be a problem. Wade agrees but the players need to improve otherwise his final comments Tuesday night could become truer by the day.
"Hopefully, they'll be improved," Wade said. "If not, we'll be playing home games in the NIT."
