LSU men's basketball is headed back to the NCAA Tournament, and they'll do so as a 6 seed.
The Tigers enter the tournament on the heels of an SEC Tournament quarterfinals loss to Arkansas, and they'll also be playing without head coach Will Wade who was fired for cause Saturday.
It marks the second time in the past three trips to the NCAAs that the Tigers are playing under an interim coach. That time it was Tony Benford with the team fighting the the Sweet 16. This time it'll be Kevin Nickelberry leading the squad, with an opener coming on Friday against 11th-seeded Iowa State in the Midwest region, which will be played at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
The Tigers and Cyclones will tip off on Friday, March 18 (broadcast times will be announced later in the day).
The rest the regional matchups will consist of:
- 3 Wisconsin (24-7) vs 14 Colgate (23-11), winner faces winner of LSU-Iowa State
- 7 USC (26-7) vs 10 Miami (23-10)
- 2 Auburn (27-5) vs 15 Jacksonville State (21-10)
Should LSU emerge from the their portion of the regional, they'd face whoever emerges from a stacked bracket that includes 1 seed Kansas, 4 seed Providence and 5 seed Iowa, barring upsets.
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The SEC landed six teams in the tourney overall. Along with LSU and Auburn, landing in the field are 2 seed Kentucky, 3 seed Tennessee, 4 seed Arkansas and 6 seed Alabama. One team that could be argued as a snub would be Texas A&M, which just missed the field despite fighting to the SEC Tournament finals which resulted in a loss to Tennessee.