SEC tourney not enough to help LSU
Published 7:00 pm Wednesday, March 7, 2018
<p class="p1">Meet me in St. Louis doesn’t exactly have the ring of a call to arms for the Southeastern Conference Basketball Tournament.</p><p class="p1">The Gateway Arch conjures up few images of the conference.</p><p class="p1">But that’s where the SEC Tournament begins today, at something called the Scottrade Center.</p><p class="p1">Perhaps it’s a subtle, if desperate, reminder that the University of Missouri is, in fact, a revenue-sharing member of the conference.</p><p class="p1">Surely, the league office also checked with Kentucky fans and learned that St. Louis was actually pretty convenient geographically for their plans, too.</p><p class="p1">They’ve always considered it their personal Big Blue festival.</p><p class="p1">The Wildcats will probably win it again.</p><p class="p1">Still, it says something about this year’s tournament that it’s not a foregone conclusion.</p><p class="p1">It’s says something about the state of SEC basketball — much improved, suddenly as good any in the land, probably the deepest for sure — that Kentucky finished tied for fourth in the regular season.</p><p class="p1">That’s kind of how you judge SEC basketball.</p><p class="p1">If anybody else is playing at UK’s level, it’s seen as encouraging, and this year there were a bunch of them — enough to hand the ’Cats eight conference losses.</p><p class="p1">The game is still something of a tough sell outside the Bluegrass, but some are starting to pay attention.</p><p class="p1">Auburn, long a hoops wasteland, got so excited about winning a share of the regular-season championship, that the arena jumped the gun and accidentally dumped celebratory confetti from the ceiling with 2 minutes remaining in its final regular-season game.</p><p class="p1">It got the War Eagles a technical foul that made a victory over South Carolina more interesting than it should have been, but no harm done.</p><p class="p1">It was still judged as a positive incident because it didn’t involve football.</p><p class="p1">There have been stirrings elsewhere across the league.</p><p class="p1">Most bracketologists who study such things say the league — right now, conference tournament not played — has eight locks for the NCAA Tournament. That would be co-champs Auburn and Tennessee (Auburn won the tiebreaker and is the SEC Tournament’s No. 1 seed) along with Florida, Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas A&M and Missouri.</p><p class="p1">Two others, Mississippi State and Alabama (even with the Tide on a five-game losing streak) could play their way in with a good showing.</p><p class="p1">LSU?</p><p class="p1">“This (LSU) is a team that can make some noise in the SEC Tournament,” Mississippi State coach Ben Howland said after the Tigers beat his Bulldogs 78-57 to end to regular season on Saturday.</p><p class="p1">Well, this year you could say that about just about any team.</p><p class="p1">And Howland didn’t know at the time that LSU and Mississippi State, after first-round byes, will play each other again in their first games Thursday night. In a quirk of bracketing, Texas A&M and Alabama will also be an immediate rematch from last Saturday.</p><p class="p1">LSU (17-13) has five wins over those NCAA “locks” in the field, not to mention the Tigers have a win over Big Ten Tournament champion Michigan.</p><p class="p1">But, in truth, LSU doesn’t really fit into the NCAA equation short of doing something really stupid-crazy like winning the whole thing. Head coach Will Wade blames bad losses to Marquette and Stephen F. Austin for blowing LSU’s bubble chances.</p><p class="p1">The Tigers are playing for seeding — in the NIT.</p><p class="p1">Wade, in fact, has been actively campaigning of late to get into the second-tier postseason tournament.</p><p class="p1">He goes so far as to lobby for a top-four NIT seed, which could mean some home games.</p><p class="p1">It’s hard to remember a coach in a Power Five conference who was so excited about the prospect of reaching the NIT.</p><p class="p1">Understand, it’s not the kind of thing Wade plans to make a habit of. His vision for LSU includes the Big Dance, sooner than later, not begging for a shot to play for the being the 69th best team in America. But this year, his first, it kind of fits.</p><p class="p1">Sure, some would call it demeaning.</p><p class="p1">But it is actually encouraging.</p><p class="p1">Two years ago -— LSU’s ill-fated Ben Simmons one-and-done season — the NIT would have been an option for an underachieving team.</p><p class="p1">But then-coach Johnny Jones made the right call in respectfully declining any invitation in advance.</p><p class="p1">The NIT wasn’t going to salvage anything for the Tigers, and that team had already shut it down (kind of quit) for the season.</p><p class="p1">This team, you suspect, would embrace the opportunity, maybe even make a little noise in the thing.</p><p class="p1">But it doesn’t mean the Tigers can’t have a little fun in St. Louis first.</p><p class="p2">l</p><p class="p3"><strong>Scooter Hobbs</strong> covers LSU athletics. Email him at</p><p class="p3">shobbs@americanpress.com</p>
