Nashville, Tennessee–with a loss to No. 25 Tennessee In the SEC Tournament quarterfinals Thursday afternoon, golden brown color (17-16) Enters an uneasy 72 hours on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
After squandering a 10-point lead in the final 10:26 of the game 72-62 defeatAuburn coach Steven Pearl worked hard to get his team into the NCAA Tournament.
If Auburn’s name is called, the Tigers will be the first major team in NCAA Tournament history to enter with 16 losses. Pearl explained that the strength of Auburn’s schedule, including seven wins in Quad 1 and Quad 2 games, should grant the program a bid.
“Our guys have some great wins in college basketball and this team deserves to be in the tournament,” Pearl said Thursday. “This is a team that can win games in the tournament, and I think they’ve done enough to finally get their name called on Selection Sunday.”
Pearl smiled and admitted to ESPN that he had heard about it from someone on his staff. Miami UniversityAuburn’s loss in the MAC Tournament about an hour before tipoff – its first of the season. miami defeat umass Auburn could eventually snatch an at-large bid, as it pushes Miami toward the at-large pool. And this again pitted the two programs – at least comparatively – against each other.
Steven Pearl’s father, former Auburn coach Bruce Pearl, made a few days of headlines earlier this month when he commented that Miami would finish in the bottom half of some power leagues. When Miami lost on Thursday, predictions began making rounds online about Miami playing Auburn in the First Four.
Asked by ESPN on Thursday about potentially playing Miami in Dayton, Steven Pearl said: “I hope we do. It would mean two very deserving teams made the tournament because they went 31-0, which is hard to do regardless of your playing schedule. Even playing only two Quad 2 games and no Quad 1, but the truth of the matter is they lost to a Quad 4 team today.”
(Bruce Pearl Earlier on Thursday it was tweeted He thought Miami was worth including.)
Auburn and Miami have become archetypes of vastly different NCAA Tournament resumes, metric versions of the enduring big vs. small dynamic that makes the NCAA Tournament so attractive year after year. Although Auburn has the most losses of any major team so far, Miami has no Quad 1 wins and only two Quad 2 wins. Miami’s predictive metrics, including No. 93 on KemPom.com, would likely make the RedHawks the lowest-ranked major league team in the predictive metrics era.
The strength of Auburn’s argument lies in the strength of schedule of the program, as the Tigers are 7-15 against Quad 1 and Quad 2 teams and are No. 5 in the nation in strength of schedule.
won against auburn st johns On neutral ground and against at home state of north carolina More wins in non-conference Florida and hit kentucky And arkansas At home The Tigers also played four NET top 10 teams in the non-conference — houston, michigan, Arizona And Purdue.
“If you don’t take strength of program very seriously in a committee, there’s no reason to set a challenging non-conference schedule,” Auburn athletic director John Cohen told ESPN. “When you build a non-conference schedule, the intent matters. And there’s no question when you study our program, the intent was to play one of the toughest schedules in college basketball.”
Steven Pearl joked in his talking points during the pregame news conference at the SEC Tournament that he was “going to torture” because “it’s my job to fight for my team.”
He also mentioned the six teams in the bubble– texas, smu, VCUMiami (Ohio), missouri And new mexico — and said: “Our top 25 have more net wins than everyone else in that group, [except] Missouri, we have more wins in the top 50 than everyone in that group. We have two top 25 road/neutral wins, which is more than everyone else on the bubble. We’ve won more on the bubble than anyone else in the projected area.”
Steven Pearl said Auburn has not had any internal conversations about playing in the NIT.
“I haven’t done that, because if you look at our resume and compare us to the other teams in the bubble, we deserve to be in the tournament,” Pearl said.
