I’ve seen some “March Madness” in my life, but LSU’s seeding in this year’s NCAA Tournament might be one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen.
Following the Tigers’ loss to a bad Auburn team on Friday, it looked like LSU added the terrible loss to its résumé that would send the Tigers on a trip to Dayton, Ohio, for the First Four or give them a No. 1 seed in the NIT.
A No. 9 seed was the last thing anyone expected.
But the NCAA Selection Committee stunned the college basketball world by giving LSU just that.
The narrative for most of today in Baton Rouge will be the simple question, “How did LSU get such a high seed?” followed by, “Yeah, but now the Tigers have to play a No. 1 seed in the second round.”
For starters, it doesn’t matter they got such a high seed. It happened, and questioning it won’t give you the answer. Secondly, slow down the doom-and-gloom negativity train. This draw is actually pretty good for the Tigers.
The Tigers open their title chase with No. 8-seeded North Carolina State.
The Wolfpack has RPI top-50 wins at home against Duke and on the road against Louisville and North Carolina, but it also suffered terrible losses against Wake Forest and Boston College. As Kentucky showed last season, the regular season doesn’t matter in the NCAA Tournament.
The biggest difficulty LSU faces from NC State is the Wolfpack’s tempo. It averages just less than 67 possessions per game. LSU prefers an up-tempo, run-and-gun style.
For the Tigers to be successful in the first round, they need to get stops and run in transition.
If LSU can dictate the pace, it should beat NC State and face a really tough Lafayette team. That’s a joke, of course. If No. 16-seeded Lafayette beats No. 1-seeded Villanova, I’ll buy the first five people to call me out on Twitter a meal at the Chick-fil-A in the Student Union.
But seriously, LSU’s second-round opponent is without a doubt Villanova if the Tigers get that far, and that’s easily the best matchup of the four No. 1 seeds for the Tigers.
Villanova likes to shoot from the outside with more than a third of its possessions resulting in 3-pointers. It isn’t a team that likes to bang bodies on the inside, and with sophomore forward Jordan Mickey looking shaken up for the last few weeks, that should be a good thing for LSU.
Shooting teams have games where they go cold from the outside, and Villanova is no different. In the Wildcats’ two losses this season, they were a combined 12-of-47 from the 3-point line, or just better than 25 percent.
If sophomore forward Jarell Martin and Mickey can lock down Villanova’s big men, LSU’s wing defenders can play tight on the 3-point line and not have to sag off to help in the paint. After the Tigers force the difficult shots, Mickey and Martin need to secure the rebounds and limit the Wildcats to one attempt per possession.
Facing a one-seed is never easy. Villanova has only lost two games all season, but its style of play puts pressure on LSU’s perimeter defense, which ranks No. 41 in the country in opponent 3-point percentage.
Regardless of seeds and who LSU lines up against, this Tiger team has proven on countless occasions this season it can beat the best of the best and lose to the worst of the worst.
Which LSU team shows up Thursday is anyone’s guess. But if they can avoid beating themselves, I can see the Tigers dancing to Syracuse, New York, for the Sweet Sixteen.
Brian Pellerin is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Kenner, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @Pellerin_TDR.