LSU Lost at Home to Alabama, But Sure, Keep Talking About the Tigers and the NCAA Tournament
By Jason McIntyre
LSU and the most talented player in college basketball, Ben Simmons, suffered a brutal defeat at home Wednesday night to Alabama, 76-69. The Tigers choked away a halftime lead, clanged 15 free throws – Simmons missed nine of them – and watched helplessly as someone named Retin Obasohan scored a career-high 35 points.
The defeat dropped perpetual bubble-sitters LSU to 16-10 and 9-4 in the so-so SEC. More importantly, it dropped them to 81st in the RPI. Strength of schedule? 75th.
These are not good numbers.
In an ordinary year, their only route in at this point would be to finish 4-1 (three road games, including Kentucky) and win the SEC tournament.
But this is far from an ordinary year.
We wrote about LSU back in December and outlined the reasons why the Tigers needed a miracle to make the tournament. Then LSU returned to full strength and got hot. And knocked off Kentucky. LSU lost a heartbreaker to Oklahoma.
Up until now, the Tigers didn’t have a bad loss in the 2016 calendar year. Sure, Florida, Texas A&M and South Carolina aren’t great teams, and I’d be shocked if any of them made it out of the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend, but all three are ahead of the LSU in the RPI.
[Aside: We can all agree the RPI is a deeply flawed metric.]
When you look at Ken Pom – where LSU is 61 – the Tigers aren’t in great shape. Among at-large teams that made the 2015 NCAA Tournament, Indiana (54, pre-tourney) was the lowest-rated Ken Pom team to sneak in.
Imagine a scenario where LSU is pitted against Monmouth for the last at-large spot. Monmouth (22-5) is 40th in RPI and 55th in Ken Pom. And most surprisingly, Monmouth has 2 “RPI Top 25” wins; LSU has two as well.
Of course LSU has played a more challenging schedule (75th currently and it’ll rise; Monmouth is 174th and that won’t improve). The guess here: If LSU goes 4-1 with a loss to Kentucky, it’ll need to win the SEC tourney to get in. If it goes 5-0, can it lose in the SEC Championship game and get in?
Either way, they still need a miracle.