Mailbag 202: What lessons can be learned from the A&M loss?
This week: Rebounding, Johni Broome, SEC awards, shooters, ESPN, Bruce Pearl, Swiss tournaments and a top 10 Texas BBQ list
(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
AUBURN — With one game left to go in the regular season, Auburn men’s basketball has an outright SEC championship.
And it’s been that way for six days.
Whether you think the analytically dominant SEC this season is actually overrated or not, there’s no denying a few facts:
No team in Division I basketball has more wins than Auburn
No team in Division I basketball has fewer losses than Auburn
No team in Division I basketball has better résumé metrics than Auburn
Only two other teams in Division I basketball are with Auburn in predictive metrics
All of this is true. Yes, even with Auburn losing Tuesday night at Texas A&M.
Auburn’s 11-point loss in College Station came down to a variety of factors. The turnaround from a historic Saturday win at Kentucky to a Tuesday night trip to Texas —two of the longest trips in the conference — was quick. The injury to Denver Jones didn’t help matters at all. Buzz Williams has had Auburn’s numbers since he went to Texas A&M. And, as Bruce Pearl noted after the loss, having zero implications for the conference title might have led to some sort of drop-off.
But Auburn still got “outplayed and outworked” by Texas A&M, which is something that hasn’t happened very often in this best-ever regular season for the program. The Tigers started both halves flatly and got beaten on the boards much worse than anyone would have expected from the rebound-heavy Aggies. To echo Pearl, there’s no excuse for the way Auburn played, even if this was a tough matchup from the start.
Still, after all of that, Auburn is locked-in as the undisputed champion of the SEC. It will be the No. 1 seed in Nashville this week. It still has a great chance at being the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament a week later and heading back to Rupp Arena, where it just lit up the scoreboard on the way to one of its most important wins ever.
And Saturday is a chance to get closer to that last part, if Auburn can beat Alabama for a season sweep in what should be an on-fire environment for Senior Day at Neville Arena.
With that in mind, this week’s mailbag starts with questions about what happened to Auburn at Texas A&M earlier this week and what it might mean moving forward. Then it’s a look at the Tigers heading into awards season, who makes sense for the final shot during tournament time and some fun at the expense of ESPN.
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Should Auburn fans overreact or under-react?
Andrew
Personally, a guy like me is always going to lean toward under-react. Overreacting usually does nothing but get a lot of emotion out for no reason.
Auburn’s whole mantra this season has been to take things one game at a time. That means after the wins and after the losses, even though there have only been three of the latter category so far. One game doesn’t determine the course of the rest of a season. The last thing to happen isn’t the only thing that’s happened.
Let’s just go back to the last time Auburn lost. Florida hit 13 shots from beyond the arc and did a lot better job finishing around the rim. Auburn’s defense and offense fell below their usual standards, and they paid for it with a tough home loss — albeit to a Final Four-good type of Florida team.
Some Auburn fans edged closer to the panic button. (I remember, I saw some of you.) A road game against upset-minded Vanderbilt, followed by a road game at Alabama? People were fearing a three-game losing streak.
And, if Auburn would have played the exact same way over the next week, it could have played out that way. Instead, Auburn shut down Vanderbilt from beyond the arc (3-17) and did a better job finishing down low in a road victory. A few days later, in the first No. 1 vs. No. 2 game in the history of the SEC, Auburn never trailed, held Alabama’s potent offense to 5-26 from deep and shot the lights out in Tuscaloosa.
That was the start of a six-game winning streak that took Auburn from tied at the top of the SEC to the outright champion. This team has done a great job of responding from adversity, as evidenced by the blowout Big Ten wins and the 9-0 start to SEC play after losing at Duke. The Tigers also won a pair of Quad 1 games after Johni Broome went down with an injury, and that was after getting a comeback win at South Carolina.
So, don’t overreact to one loss. If the issues from the Texas A&M game come up at home against Alabama on Saturday in a loss, then it’s more concerning. If Auburn tightens it up and puts an exclamation mark on the regular season with a victory, then what happened earlier this week will be mostly forgotten by tournament time.
This Auburn team, through its body of work this season, has more than earned the benefit of the doubt from its fans.
That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. (It’s a college basketball team.) That doesn’t mean it’s going to win out. (The postseason is inherently chaotic.) That doesn’t mean some teams will give it more trouble than others. (Matchups matter.)
But a tough performance, when you’re less than 100%, playing away from home, against a team that’s had your number for years and there are no immediate implications? That could be the most brushoff-able March loss you’ll ever see.
How did Auburn‘s vaunted frontcourt get belt-to-ass whooped by A&M on the boards?
Kevin