Critical week for Auburn basketball
The last month has not been kind to Steven Pearl’s Tigers on the hardwood.
Losers of seven of its last eight games, Auburn faces a situation where it must win out this week and make some noise in the SEC Tournament to bolster its NCAA Tournament resume.
It begins tonight against LSU, which sits alongside South Carolina at the bottom of the SEC standings. The Bayou Bengals hold a 3-13 record in conference play, but two of their three conference wins have come in overtime on the road. Dismiss them at your own risk, but this is a team playing with a purpose amidst its struggles.
Auburn’s 3-point defense has been its Achilles’ heel over the last month, ranking 346th nationally in 3-point percentage defense (37.1). The Tigers have allowed double-digit makes from deep in five of their last nine games, including back-to-back games against Oklahoma and Ole Miss.
The orange and blue Tigers must find a way to limit LSU and Alabama this week from beyond the arc – and that’s no easy task, considering they’ll have to contend with Alabama’s deep-shot prowess and LSU’s Max Mackinnon, who shoots 39.2% from 3-point land.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi slotted Auburn in the “First Four Out’ in his latest bracketology. Keeping Auburn afloat is a win in Gainsville – which snapped a 30-year drought in the Sunshine State – and strong showings in nonconference play.
There’s no denying Pearl inherited a brutal schedule in his first season at the helm, but Auburn has progressively gotten worse since mid-January, raising concerns about the future of the program.
Pearl can put critics to rest with a strong finish to the season. If he leads the Tigers to the NCAA Tournament, he would become the first first-year head coach at Auburn to lead the program to the Big Dance, while extending the Tigers’ streak to a program-record five consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.
Tigers rolling on the diamond
Butch Thompson’s Tigers have had an impressive start to the season.
Auburn narrowly avoided a second-straight midweek loss to West Georgia last week, walking it off on a single from Bub Terrell. It responded from a Friday night loss to Nebraska – the first series-opening loss at home since 2024 – by outscoring the Cornhuskers 27-7 over the next two games to claim the series.
The Tigers have been nothing short of stellar on the rubber, striking out 140 batters while issuing just 25 walks. The 140 strikeouts are the most in the stat-crew era (since at least 1992), surpassing the 1997 team’s 138 strikeouts through 11 games, and the 25 walks allowed are the fewest since 2001 (24) and the second-fewest in the stat-crew era.
The pitching staff enters the week ranked in the top five in the country in strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.60; second), walks allowed per nine innings (2.32; second), and strikeouts per nine innings (13.0; fourth). Auburn has recorded double-digit strikeouts in 10 of the first 11 games.
After a sluggish start offensively this season, Auburn is beginning to find its stride with the bats. Brandon McCraine posted a .500 batting average after a 6-for-12 showing last week. He leads the league in average (.533) and ranks third in on-base percentage (.634) in his first 10 career games.
His brother, Mason McCraine, delivered a 6-of-13 week with eight RBIs and a longball.
Auburn also welcomed Chris Rembert back into the lineup after an opening-weekend ankle injury, giving the Tigers an All-American second baseman to work with. And southpaw pitcher Griffen Graves could see action soon after missing the first 11 games with a lat injury.
Auburn will begin another busy week at Plainsman Park with its first in-state showdown of the season on Tuesday night against Samford at 6 p.m. CT.
Until next time… TG
