What's On the Line for LSU Basketball at SEC Tournament?

Will Wade and LSU enter the 2022 SEC tournament with plenty on the line in postseason opportunities.

Entering the tournament, LSU is pretty firmly a six seed with a few projections having the Tigers as a five or a seven. Being a huge numbers guy, Wade thinks depending on how the tournament goes, LSU has real opportunity to bust into that five seed range or even slip into seven territory with a loss to Missouri or Ole Miss.

Wade went on one of his percentage monologues in terms of the NCAA tournament seeding. According to Wade, five, six and seven seeds win their first round NCAA matchups 64% of the time. The seven seed wins the second round game about 18% of the time, the six seed wins 31% of the time while the five seed is slightly higher than that in the second round.

His point being that LSU is aiming for that five or six seed and it will take a strong performance at the SEC tournament to help boost the resume enough to overlap some of the teams that are in similar positions.

"We could move up or down one depending on how it goes. There's a lot of us right around each other on the five, six, seven line. I think how the conference tournament's go are huge, that's gonna be a big component," Wade said. "The odds of losing that first game are all tough but once you get to that second one, the numbers really change between being a five or a six or a seven or an eight."

It's why LSU is really pouring a lot into this first game against Missouri or Ole Miss on Thursday. While the Tigers are not in much danger of falling past seven, the opportunity to continue playing and boost their chances at a higher seed make that first game extremely important.

There are different scenarios the team will prepare for with each potential opponent as Ole Miss really likes to switch up its defenses by playing more zone while Missouri really likes to trap on ball screens.

"We've got some really good opportunities. The hardest game to win in any tournament is the first one," Wade said. "You have to win the first one, you've gotta win that one to get your momentum going and everybody's more prepared. Second game of the tournament, we're gonna be very difficult to prepare for just because the way we play is pretty unique."

The goal for how this team wants to look in the postseason is confident, aggressive and loose but not to a fault. LSU has obviously had numerous issues with turnovers and being overly aggressive down the stretch, an identity that's impossible to change this late in the season.

"We gotta work on our six minute game, on some of our late game situations. You try to work on stuff that generally can be used for both teams, defensive principles, fundamentals, that sort of thing," Wade said. "Then we're gonna work on our late game stuff to make sure we're on point with that."

It'll be key that this team continues to play with the same level of aggression that's gotten them to this point but to also improve in keeping itself out of bad spots late in the game. If there's one constant about postseason college basketball it's that teams have the ability to break your heart or send you into a state of pure joy.

LSU is a team that definitely falls into that category with its unpredictable play but Wade believes this group has found the right formula as postseason play begins.

"We're certainly playing a lot better, a lot closer to our capabilities," Wade said. "We wanna keep that going."