Nobody said it was going to be easy.

Sure, it looked that way when LSU navigated its non-conference men’s basketball schedule with 12 straight wins. It was a challenging roadmap strategically designed by Tigers’ head coach Will Wade to position his team in the top 10 of the NCAA Net rankings vital to post-season tourney selection.

Suddenly as LSU climbed the Associated Press and Coaches polls, expectations skyrocketed.

But nobody knows Wade’s team better than him. While he is very much a new wave coach deep into analytics and numbers, he also is deeply connected to the vibe of his players.

So, despite the Tigers’ phenomenal non-conference start, he consistently and rightfully tried to publicly temper over-enthusiasm. He understood the first month of LSU’s SEC schedule was an absolute bear with six of the first seven league games scheduled against the five teams in the preseason media voting picked to finish ahead of LSU.

Wade also knows his team’s delicate chemistry. Losing any of the team’s starters for any length of time with an injury or COVID throws everything out of whack.

When that happens, more is demanded of certain players who haven’t before had an increased workload and bizarre lineup combinations appear. Suddenly, the team which breezed through November and December has lost two straight games for the first time this season.

Considering the 13th ranked Tigers (15-3 overall, 3-3 SEC) will still not have injured senior starting point guard Xavier Pinson (sprained knee) available to play at Tennessee on Saturday at 5 p.m. CT (12-5, 3-3), odds favor LSU suffering a third straight loss despite the fact injured senior forward Darius Days (sprained ankle) will likely play.

That’s something Wade hasn’t experienced since his first Tigers’ team in 2017-18 had successive SEC losses vs. Alabama, Georgia and Vanderbilt.

It also puts in perspective how far LSU’s program has come in Wade's five seasons. It’s easy to forget LSU’s school record 15 consecutive losses and the Tigers’ 2-16 SEC record in Johnny Jones’ final year guiding his alma mater in 2016-17.

Wade, despite the sword of an NCAA investigation for alleged recruiting violations that has hung over his head since March 2019, has signed more 5-star (5) and 4-star (8) recruits in his five recruiting classes than Jones did (3 5-star, 4 4-star).

His current team is on track to become his third NCAA tourney squad (discounting LSU’s likely bid to 2020 tourney that was canceled because of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The fact LSU is on the verge of a possible three-game losing streak isn’t out of the ordinary in this season’s SEC, which has become wildly unpredictable because of the free agency effect of the transfer portal.

The Tigers are one of four SEC teams with 3-3 league records. Arkansas started conference play 0-3. Tennessee has yet to climb above .500 in the SEC. Alabama started 2-0 in conference games, then lost three straight before beating LSU 70-67 in Tuscaloosa on Wednesday.

“After watching some of the other leagues last night (on TV), I think it (SEC) is the best league in the country,” Wade said during his Friday Zoom call from Knoxville. “It's just going to be tough, tough sledding. We're going to accumulate some losses, that's just the way it is. Even if we were full strength, we would accumulate some losses.

“Everybody's got injuries, everybody's got problems. It's who can navigate through them the best way.”

LSU’s troubles, besides injuries, are no secret.

First, there’s the fact the Tigers are averaging a league-leading 22.3 fouls per game in SEC play. LSU is the only team in the league tagged with 20 or more fouls in all of its SEC games so far.

Also, five LSU players have fouled out a league-high nine times in conference games. LSU is the only team in the SEC with six players having 35 or more fouls each for the season.

Meanwhile, there’s this amazing stat – Kentucky hasn’t had a player foul out in any of its 18 games this season.

Reading that, it’s easy to believe LSU is getting hosed every game by the officiating crews. While there’s no doubt there's an extraordinary amount of debatable calls and non-calls, the Tigers can stay out of foul trouble by eliminating their laundry list of senseless fouls.

Why body-up on an opposing ball-handler 25 to 30 feet from the basket? Why try to slap away a rebound three seconds after it has been secured by the opposition?

Those fouls have accumulated to the point LSU has no leeway when the Tigers get whistled for questionable fouls.

LSU, which leads the nation in field goal defense and steals because of its aggressive approach, isn’t going to change its style. But the Tigers’ foul problem will be drastically reduced eliminating the needless fouls.

As is the case with fouls, LSU’s 16.6 turnovers in SEC games can be improved by the Tigers not trying to make plays on every possession that simply aren’t there.

“We play fast and the result of playing fast is sometimes turnovers,” said LSU sophomore forward Tari Eason, clearly the team’s MVP so far. “We’re going to have to cut down on that.”

How much LSU can do this is anybody’s guess. The Tigers feel this is the way they were built to score because their halfcourt offense often inexplicably grinds to a halt, resulting in one-on-one basketball producing rushed shots and turnovers

There’s also LSU’s penchant for giving up too many offensive rebounds. If the Tigers do believe they can win games by simply getting more possessions, it doesn’t do much good if they give up 13 offensive rebounds per game in SEC play.

Rebounding is more than boxing out and playing physical. It’s also cerebral, understanding where a missed shot might carom based on the spot and angle it was shot from on the court.

It would be easy for Wade to get more accountability for LSU’s repeated mistakes in a tried-and-true old-school coaching fashion of having his players run punishment sprints in practice to the point of vomiting.

“I know what I’d like to do,” Wade said a week or so ago, “but that’s not what this team needs.”

Wade is fortunate because he has a roster of high character players whose effort can never be questioned. There no head cases on this team, no egos. They just want to win.

Once LSU is at full health again, it certainly has the goods to finish in the top three of the SEC for a fourth straight season (the only SEC team with a chance to do so) and collect another NCAA tournament bid.

“We’ve had to adjust on the fly,” Wade said. “We’ve had to put a lot of lineups out there (because of injuries) that we’ve never practiced with before. We’re asking kids to play positionally what they really haven’t practiced playing.

“We’re a couple of days to a week away of having everybody back healthy. When we have everybody, we’re going to be in great shape.”

Having a full complement of players doesn’t guarantee LSU will overcome its fouling, turnovers, rebounding woes and offensive stagnation. But maybe as the season progresses, all those negatives can be reduced enough for the Tigers to get past the first weekend of the NCAA tourney.