Aubserver Mailbag 161: What are the Tigers' SEC Tournament seeding scenarios?
This week: Quad talk, close game concerns, point guard play, Johni Broome, SEC venue rankings, tournament concessions and travel
(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
For the third straight week, we’re just jumping right into the mailbag. Thanks as always for everybody who reads, listens, supports and subscribes. Let’s go.
Now that we know there will not be a five-way tie for first, what are the scenarios for seeding in the SEC tournament based on what the five contenders do on Saturday?
And would the national perception of Auburn be any different if quad wins were not a thing?
Paul
RIP to the five-way tie for the SEC regular season title. It was a dream too beautiful for this world. (In all honesty, I think Tennessee is a deserving outright champion, as I believe the Volunteers have been the clear-cut best in the league from the very start of the season.)
The simplest way to describe the scenario for Saturday is this: If Auburn beats Georgia, it will get that double-bye in the SEC Tournament and not play until Friday. There are ways for the Tigers to lose and still get in the top four, but they ultimately control their own fate when it comes to how many games they’d have to play in Nashville.
Auburn can finish anywhere between No. 2 and No. 6 in the league, depending on what happens Saturday. The tiebreakers can be quite complicated. When two teams are tied, it goes to head-to-head record, then the winning percentage against the No. 1 seed, the No. 2 seed, etc. — all the way down until the tie is broken. When three or more teams are tied, it goes to winning percentage in games against the teams that are tied, then it goes to the same No. 1, No. 2, etc. format in the two-way tie.
It’s a lot. Right now, Auburn is in a four-way tie with Alabama, Kentucky and South Carolina. Using this helpful tiebreaker calculator, here are Auburn’s scenarios for a top-four seed, with the results listed by when the games tip off Saturday:
2 SEED
Arkansas > Alabama
South Carolina vs. Mississippi State result doesn’t matter
Tennessee > Kentucky
Auburn > Georgia
Auburn is 2 seed, South Carolina is 3 seed (head-to-head record)
3 SEED (SCENARIO 1)
Alabama > Arkansas
South Carolina vs. Mississippi State result doesn’t matter
Tennessee > Kentucky
Auburn > Georgia
Alabama is 2 seed, Auburn is 3 seed (tiebreaker goes down to winning percentage vs. Florida)
3 SEED (SCENARIO 2)
Arkansas > Alabama
Mississippi State > South Carolina
Kentucky > Tennessee
Auburn > Georgia
Kentucky is 2 seed, Auburn is 3 seed (head-to-head victory)
4 SEED (SCENARIO 1)
Alabama > Arkansas
South Carolina > Mississippi State
Kentucky > Tennessee
Auburn > Georgia
Kentucky is 2 seed, Alabama is 3 seed (winning percentage vs. Florida)
4 SEED (SCENARIO 2)
Arkansas > Alabama
South Carolina > Mississippi State
Kentucky > Tennessee
Auburn > Georgia
South Carolina is 2 seed, Alabama is 3 seed (winning percentage vs. Tennessee)
4 SEED (SCENARIO 3)
Arkansas > Alabama
Mississippi State > South Carolina
Kentucky vs. Tennessee result does not matter
Vanderbilt > Florida (without this, a top-four seed isn’t possible with a loss)
Georgia > Auburn
Kentucky is 2 seed, Alabama is 3 seed (winning percentage vs. Florida)
If Auburn loses to Georgia at home Saturday, it will likely finish as a 5 seed or a 6 seed. In interest of saving space for this mailbag, I’m not going to type them all out here — but we’ll have them at the ready on Twitter, just in case.
And, since Auburn-Georgia will be the last game of consequence that tips off Saturday, we’ll know exactly where the Tigers will land in the event of a win or a loss pretty early in the game.
To answer your second question, I think Auburn’s perception would be much higher if the general college basketball world wasn’t as obsessed with quadrants as it is right now.
Yes, Auburn is only 1-7 in Quad 1 games this season. That’s what is going to likely keep a top-eight team in NET out of a No. 2 or even a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Recent losses for Mississippi State and Ole Miss have cost the Tigers a couple more Quad 1 wins, and the general underachievement for teams such as Indiana, USC and Texas A&M this season have hurt.
But Auburn also doesn’t have a bad loss this season. It has the best Quad 2 record of any team in college basketball at 9-0. Only a handful of Division I teams are undefeated in Quad 2 this season, and no one else has more than seven wins.
And Quad 1 shouldn’t be a be-all, end-all. There’s an even further Quad 1A designation for the toughest possible games on a schedule. Georgia Tech is 4-0 in those games this season. Georgia Tech is also 14-16 overall and No. 125 in NET.
As Bart Torvik, the creator of T-Rank, tweeted earlier this week: “Georgia Tech is proof that isolating a team’s performance in only its hardest games does not magically reveal the team’s true quality.” And, as The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie tweeted earlier this season: “I get why the quadrant stuff was invented, but I do think it’s reduced the level of discourse about actual basketball some in college hoops.”
Auburn is rated as one of the best teams in the entire country despite having a rough record in Quad 1 games. That’s because it takes care of business better than anybody else in the country, with a massive list of double-digit wins as proof.
A couple of weeks ago, you were asked about seeding in the SEC Tournament and what path would be the most ideal for Auburn. Now that we're coming up on the end of the regular season, could you revisit that question?
Specifically, since Auburn will lock up a double bye if they beat UGA on Saturday, could you look at the matchups that are most likely to feed into Auburn's quarterfinal game and which other double bye team Auburn would be across from in the semis, then could you give some of your thoughts on which teams would be the most favorable for Auburn to play in those games?
James