Iowa State vs. LSU Bracket Prediction: March Madness Odds
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Jeremy Perry
They will get to compete for a spot in the Final Four and a possible dark-horse shot at a national championship, but they also know that once this NCAA Tournament ends, they probably won’t be able to play in the NCAA Tournament in 2023 and 2024. There’s an explanation below, and it shapes the nature of this March Madness game.
Iowa State vs. LSU NCAA Tournament Point Spread and Betting
The Cyclones are 4-1 ATS in their last five neutral site games and neutral site as a dog. However, that doesn’t represent their play in the NCAA Tournament so much as they are just 2-5 ATS in their last seven March Madness games.
As for LSU, they’ve been bad as a favorite in March Madness, going 3-8 ATS in their last 11. They are also just 3-9 ATS in their last 12 as a favorite overall.
Iowa State Cyclones (11)
The Tigers are favored because of their talent, and also because Iowa State lost a lot of games this season and is prone to long, prolonged scoring droughts. Iowa State is widely recognized as being one of the worst perimeter jump-shooting teams in college basketball. The Cyclones have a star player, Izaiah Brockington, and not very much else, in their lineup. Can someone else step up?
The Cyclones played in a very rugged and competitive Big 12 Conference, so they were going to take some lumps in league play. They went 7-11 in 18 regular-season Big 12 games, and they lost in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament to Texas Tech, meaning that they actually went 7-12 in 19 Big 12 games. Yet, they didn’t lose a non-conference game this season, and they scored a blowout win over an Iowa team which is a No. 5 seed in this NCAA Tournament. The non conference portion of the Cyclones’ portfolio was able to get them into the field of 68. Iowa State is a great defensive team and a subpar offensive team. The Cyclones are going to stay in the hunt because of their defense, but they won’t pull away from most opponents because their offense is very drought-prone.
Louisiana State Tigers (6)
The Tigers’ wins over Kentucky and Tennessee show why they are seeded No. 6 compared to Iowa State at No. 11, but past performance is not a good judge or indicator of how the Tigers will play in this game and this specific situation. The reason for this is that the Tigers fired coach Will Wade just before this NCAA Tournament game. The Tigers were eliminated from the SEC Tournament last Friday by Arkansas. Wade was fired the next day. Everyone in college basketball knows why this happened when it did: LSU received a notice of allegations which – clearly – were extremely bad. The notice of allegations contained information so severe that LSU had to act quickly and fire Wade to minimize future NCAA penalties.
The Tigers are near-certain to be ineligible for the 2023 NCAA Tournament, and there is a very real chance they will be ineligible in 2024 as well. Even if they are eligible in 2024, they will probably be hit with scholarship reductions which will make it hard for LSU to recruit good players for a few years. Meanwhile, assistant coach Kevin Nickelberry will be interim coach in this game, replacing Wade. It is very hard to know how LSU players will react to this situation. With the game in Milwaukee, Iowa State should have a partisan crowd, too.
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