Mailbag 191: Where is Auburn projected in a loaded SEC?
This week: Skip passes, offensive strategy, transfer success, Hugh Freeze's Year 3, Christmas lasagna and Bob Holt
SF Chad Baker-Mazara (Steven Leonard/Auburn Tigers)
AUBURN — Welcome back to the mailbag.
Since we last ‘bagged, Auburn basketball has gone to Maui, won the entire Invitational, lost a tough road trip at Duke and bounced back with a massive blowout win to remain No. 1 in KenPom (and, now, the NCAA’s NET ratings).
Meanwhile, Auburn football has won an epic four-overtime game against Texas A&M, got another reality check in the Iron Bowl in Tuscaloosa, signed a top-10 recruiting class and started attacking what should be a busy transfer portal window.
And The Observer has been there for all of it.
With all that travel and action, the mailbag has been filling up like a Christmas stocking. But we’re back this week — just a day early due to some basketball media availability later this afternoon — and we’ve got a lot to get to when it comes to both teams of Tigers.
A reminder: If you buy a gift subscription to The Observer between now and Christmas, send me an email and I’ll get you some free time added to your account. Let’s go.
Any idea where Auburn MBB projects to finish in the SEC after the hot start? (Maybe Joshdub has posted that and I missed it). Also, how many additional games would Auburn have to lose to drop from that spot down to 9th?
As for Christmas takes, I've recently begun making a Christmas sausage wreath each year. It's not too difficult, and it just looks sooo fancy on the plate.
Auburn Elvis
Entering the season, the SEC looked like the best conference in college basketball. Judging by the first few weeks of games, we still might have underestimated it.
Heading into Wednesday, the SEC has a combined record of 128-19. The worst team in terms of record, South Carolina, is just 6-3 and has won three straight games over top-150ish teams. An Oklahoma team we all thought would be the cellar of the conference is still undefeated after storming through the Battle 4 Atlantis. There are just seven unbeaten teams left in Division I, and the SEC has the only three power-conference ones.
The SEC has half of the KenPom Top 10 right now and is responsible for wins over No. 3 Duke, No. 4 Gonzaga, No. 5 Houston (twice), No. 6 Iowa State, No. 11 Kansas, No. 13 St. John’s, No. 15 Illinois and No. 16 Baylor. As it stands right now, 15 of Auburn’s 18 SEC games this season are projected Quadrant 1 matchups. That’s absurd.
“Everybody talks about how much Duke's gonna improve, because they're so young,” Bruce Pearl said recently. “I keep telling my team this: I'd like them to say the same thing about us. We're gonna have to, to be able to deal with the league we've got right now. Right now… if the tournament was seeded today, there would be 12 teams from the SEC.
“If you guys pull an earlier press conference I had after a practice, I said, 'Guys, I've got great news for you: I really do believe we're gonna be in the top 30 teams in the country. I really do. I also believe we could finish 10th in our league and be ranked 30th.' So, it's gonna be a grind.”
The good news for Auburn fans is two-fold: First, when it’s all said and done, no one will have played a tougher non-conference schedule in the SEC than the Tigers. Auburn is at No. 8 in strength of schedule with games against No. 29 Ohio State and No. 18 Purdue still left to play. Alabama, currently at No. 4, has No. 48 Creighton at home and then three teams outside of the top 100. (Tennessee is at No. 147 in SOS.)
Second, the projections particularly love this Auburn team. It’s got the No. 1 offense in the country on KenPom and has room to grow upon a top-25 defense. KenPom and T-Rank both have Auburn winning the SEC at 14-4. EvanMiya has Tennessee ahead of Auburn right now in its overall ratings, but the Tigers get to host the Volunteers this season in their only matchup. That’s huge. (The same goes for Florida.)
If anyone goes 14-4 in the SEC this season, that would be one of the most remarkable campaigns in recent memory. This is going to be an even bigger bloodbath than usual. There won’t be a single layup game, especially on the road. If a team can win the majority of its conference games away from home and mostly hold serve inside its own house, that’s No. 1 overall seed material.
KenPom projects the top half of the SEC to all go 9-9 or better in league play. To drop into the bottom half, Auburn would have to lose six more games than current projections. It’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely with the way the Tigers have taken care of business — their only loss so far is at ultra-talented Duke, and they’ve already beaten two top-six teams and two more top-40 teams away from home.
Auburn fans should take things one game at a time, just like the team is doing. The Ohio State game on Saturday will present its own tough challenges, even if Auburn is expected to win in Atlanta by a few possessions. This could be a truly special season on the Plains, and the key is to not look too far ahead. Savor every victory.
Also, savor those sausage wreaths. I need to see a picture of one of those.
The low post-skip pass from Johni to the opposite wing/corner hit for several threes against Richmond.
Without doing a whole film room on it, is that a new wrinkle in the offense? Or is it just something we’ve had in there already that we knew we could exploit against Richmond?
Ryan