Here’s the thing…
This week’s SEC Tournament is many things. Great basketball in an absurdly deep conference. A proving ground to shake out the final kinks before the real March basketball begins. A litmus test to decide of the SEC could break the NCAA Tournament record for most teams from a single league. Dr. Naismith’s twisted vision of forced cannibalism.
In reality, though, this week’s proceedings in Nashville feel exclusively like an inexorable march toward a coronation.
Auburn’s coronation.
The Tigers opened Friday’s proceedings as an 11.5-point favorite against the very game – and very lucky – Ole Miss Rebels. By the time the shouting was done at Bridgestone Arena, the Rebels (who needed John Calipari’s self-immolation Thursday to get to this point) were sent packing 62-57 with a valuable object lesson: You come at the king, you best not miss.
Bruce Pearl’s Auburn squad was playing its first game in 6 days on Friday, which one would think might lend to a bit of oxidation within gears that were lubed to perfection during a regular season campaign in which the Tigers spent a goodly amount of time at No. 1 in the country.
And yes, plenty of squirts of WD-40 were necessary to goose Auburn’s offense into gear – as the Tigers mustered just 29 first-half points to trigger “upset alert” pushes across all the major platforms.
But Auburn survived thanks to a 23-point, 14-rebound double-double effort from Player of the Year candidate Johni Broome. But for plenty of the afternoon, it indeed looked like the Rebels were ready to throw the biggest upset into the March machine so far.
Because if you want to convert No. 1 into another Final Four run, it probably helps not to go 4:41 worth of the second half without a single point. That’s what the Tigers did from the 10:46 mark to the 6:05 mark – which allowed Ole Miss to tie it at 46.
From there, though, Auburn snapped out of it and started playing like Auburn. The Tigers rattled off an 11-1 run that started with a Chaney Johnson 3 and was capped by a Denver Jones 3-point play with 3:00 to play to make it 57-47.
Still, Ole Miss made it interesting down the stretch, as Jaylen Murray made a pair of free throws with 38 seconds remaining to make it 60-57. But Broome ended it with an icy jumper at the end of the ensuing possession for the final margin.
Cue the exhales from Auburn Nation.
Listen, it isn’t like hoops observers didn’t see this coming. The talent level the SEC possesses, top to bottom, is simply insane – with perhaps as many as 14 of the 16 conference teams making the Big Dance. That would obliterate the previous record of 11 held by the Big East in 2011.
Which means that the Ole Misses of the world can and will throw a scare into the Auburns of the world on any given night, whether it be in Oxford, on The Plains on in Smashville. It has simply been that kind of season in the SEC, a collective that recently considered basketball more of an afterthought (except for Kentucky, alas) in between football season and spring football practice.
Those days are long over. Because the Auburns and Alabamas of the world realized that they could easily become Everything Schools simply by trying a wee bit harder at it. Before Auburn’s Bruce Pearl and Alabama’s Nate Oats, the best Tigers and Tide basketball fans could hang their hats on was Charles Barkley and Sonny Smith (Auburn) and Leon Douglas and Mark Gottfried (Alabama).
The same can be said for Florida, Tennessee, Texas A&M and the rest of the conference. It is quite possible that the same SEC that barely had any representation in the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet 16 back in 2013 could end up with 3 teams in the Final Four this year.
But that is still a few weeks away, and far from the meat grinder of the SEC Tournament. Friday meant survive and advance for Auburn, mustering just enough offense against a game Ole Miss team that now gets some valuable rest time before next week’s Big Dance.
And the Tigers? Pearl’s gritty crew took another step toward a second straight conference tournament trophy. Those wins earn rings and banners and cut-down nets, of course, but not the ones that really matter in March.
That goal is still way ahead for Auburn. Tomorrow is another day.
Survive and advance, thy name is the Auburn Tigers Saturday Down South.
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