LSU Basketball In Search of Spark to Close 2022 Regular Season on Right Note

Tigers hoping Saturday's win over Missouri is the start to regaining identity

Will Wade didn't quite know how to put it into words but LSU is in need of a spark. He couldn't really pin down what spark was referring to, best referring to the Tigers over the last month as "stuck in neutral."

It's been a difficult last month or so for this team that lost its identity in the weeds of all the injuries and losing that have occurred during that stretch. This team began the season with extremely high hopes only to find themselves confident in an NCAA tournament appearance with just two regular season games to go. 

The beginning of the year LSU's identity was clear. They played really hard on defense, their pressure on the ball led to turnovers and transition opportunities on offense that the team was consistently converting. On Saturday against Missouri, LSU had that feel of the team seen earlier in the season, forcing 19 turnovers that turned into 25 points on offense.

"We spent the last couple of days talking about getting back to an identity, getting back to who we were," Wade said. "If we do that we're really good, I showed a highlight tape before the game of us earlier in the year turning our defense into offense and I think our guys noticed it. We played a little more complementary basketball."

After a 15-1 start to the season and coming off two top 25 wins in a row over Kentucky and Tennessee, it certainly wasn't the vision to lock down a tournament appearance this late in the season. But with two more resume building opportunities on the road at Arkansas and at home against Alabama to close the regular season, Wade and the Tigers see these as potentially momentum building games heading into the postseason.

"After tonight, in my opinion we've clinched an NCAA berth," Wade said after the Tigers win over Missouri. "Now we're pretty much playing for seeding at this point. Now you see a light at the end of the tunnel, we've been in a patch where we've just been slogging through it."

So much of the time in college basketball, the teams that make a deep run in the postseason are the ones that start to play their best at the end of the season. There are teams that struggle at times during the regular season who put it together in the postseason and vice versa. 

Wade used the example of the Final Four team he was a part of at VCU that made its cinderella run back in 2011 when that group lost three of its last four regular season games. Just to have a chance at the NCAA tournament that year, VCU had to rely on a last second tipped ball in the conference quarterfinals to have the resume.

"We've got a chance to pick some momentum up this last week going into the conference tournament," Wade said. "I've been a part of teams, it's all about when you get hot. I've been a part of teams that play great all regular season and collapse in the tournaments."

Getting that identity back is step one to this team getting back on track, something the purple and gold were able to start showing in their most recent SEC win. The Tigers hope that Saturday's performance against Missouri is just the start of a really strong finish to the regular season where momentum can be built and improved seeding can be accomplished. 

"We had such good rhythm and chemistry for the first month and a half and we need something to reignite us," Wade said. "We've kind of been stuck in neutral and we need something to put us back in high gear. Hopefully tonight's a start of that in getting our identity back."