The Auburn Tigers have been one of the two best men’s college basketball teams in the nation all season. They have been neck and neck with Duke. The Auburn Tigers are 27-4 on the season, but they have lost their last two games.
Fans of the team wonder if the recent losses mean the Auburn Tigers are on the downturn. Probably not. Good is good, though the Tigers were ranked No. 3 in the most recent AP poll. Do you think the recent slide by the Auburn Tigers, or is the Southeastern Conference just difficult?
Auburn Tigers Men’s Basketball Roster
The best player on the Auburn roster is senior forward Johni Broome. He is averaging 10.6 rebounds per game and 18.6 points. He is so good he may win the Naismith Award as the top player in college basketball. Broome’s running mate is senior Guard Chad Baker-Mazara. Both have flourished under the leadership of Tiger Head Coach Bruce Pearl.
The clear third player for the Auburn Tigers is Miles Kelly, a senior guard. Kelly averages 11.6 points per game and shoots over 40% from three-point range. The fourth-best player on the Tigers is freshman Guard Tahaad Pettiford who also averages 11.6 points per game and shoots almost 40% from the field.
Denver Jones is a senior guard from Alabama who averages 10.7 points per game. He has started most of the games for the Tigers. As has Dylan Cardwell. Caldwell is a 6-foot-11 center. The length he provides may be necessary in the upcoming tournaments.
The Auburn bench consists of Chaney Johnson. He is a senior forward who averages 9.7 points a game for the Tigers. Jahki Howard, Ja’Heim Hudson, JP Pegues, Chris Moore, Blake Muschalek, Presley Patterson, CJ Williams, and Reed Trapp. Trapp has only played in one game this season.
Main Storylines
The top story for the Auburn Tigers now is the Associated Press poll. The Tigers were ranked first, but have just suffered two losses and fell to third in the poll, behind Duke and Houston. This poll marks the first time Duke has been ranked No. 1 since 2021.
Other notes from the just released poll include the conference tally. The Southeastern and Big Ten conferences led the way with seven teams each in the poll. The SEC, a juggernaut, had three of the top five and six in the top 15. Rounding out the poll, the Big Ten had one team in the top 10. The Big 12 had four ranked teams, the ACC three, the Big East two, and the American Athletic and West Coast Conferences one each.
The second story is about the reaction to the new poll. It lists what fans must know about each ranked team heading into the conference tournaments. About Auburn, the article says, “The Tigers are the third team in NCAA men’s basketball history to lose their final two games of the regular season as the AP No. 1 team. In 2006, Duke entered the ACC tournament on a two-game losing streak but rebounded to win the ACC title and make it to the Sweet 16 (lost to LSU). In 1958, Kansas State entered the NCAA tournament on a two-game losing streak and ended up losing in the Final Four.”
The third storyline is ostensibly about the conference tournaments. The very first question discussed in the article is whether the Auburn Tigers are still the top team heading into conference tournaments. The answer is yes, though the experts all think Auburn needs to do well in the SEC Tournament.
Conclusion
As the third team in the most recent poll, Auburn should get a No. 1 seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament. They could lose early in the tough SEC Tournament. These losses, however, do not change the star power of their team nor how capable they are. The Auburn Tigers are a dangerous basketball team in the Men’s tournament. Also, nobody should count out Pearl.
