Michigan State Basketball: 5 reasons Spartans will beat LSU in Sweet 16

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BATON ROUGE , LOUISIANA – FEBRUARY 26: Head coach Will Wade of the LSU Tigers calls a play during the first half of a game against the Texas A&M Aggies at Pete Maravich Assembly Center on February 26, 2019 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images) /

4. LSU is riddled with distractions

The players have been shaking off talk of distractions left and right, and they’re doing a great job of it. Every team faces distractions and adversity, but what LSU is going through is second to none.

At some point, this team is going to struggle under pressure and it nearly did against both Yale and Maryland, blowing big second-half leads and looking like deer in headlights near the end of both games only to escape with a four-point win and two-point win, respectively.

Without a head coach who was present for the entire successful SEC title-winning season, this team is going to struggle at some point with the distractions.

How exactly have the Tigers been able to get to the Sweet 16 without Will Wade? That’s a good question, but they can’t bank on fighting adversity to drive them through this scenario, especially if they don’t even know if these wins will be vacated a few years down the line.

So far, LSU has been held together with duct tape and thread, but there’ll come a time when the distractions will get the best of the Tigers — and Michigan State will take advantage.

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