Auburn’s win over Kentucky on Saturday showed that the conference is much more than its football teams.
For more than 24 hours, the students camped around the arena, desperate for a chance to go inside and watch the action. The general public, to whom tickets are not distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, spent $300 a pop on stand-room-only tickets to get to the gym.
It's a scene that will be familiar at Duke in Krzyzewskiville, where college basketball has always reigned supreme. But in Auburn? in the SEC? Your first thought would be that the orange-clad crowd got lost on their way to Jordan-Hare Stadium.
At least for the next few months, Auburn is a basketball school. And in front of a packed home of just over 9,000 after the Tigers' 80-71 win over Kentucky, Auburn may be the nation's No. 1 basketball school.
Saturday's clash with a traditional SEC basketball school in Kentucky was even more than SEC dominance or No. 1 ranking. It was by far the clearest example of what the SEC has become on hardwood. Basketball is no longer a distant thing. And with the end of convention schools investing in college hoops and the crazy fan base embracing it, SEC basketball is here to stay.
"I know it happens in North Carolina, I know it happens in Kansas. It's happening in Auburn, Alabama," said Bruce Pearl, a jubilant on CBS after Saturday's game. There are schools, but we are also a everything school."
Under John Calipari, Kentucky became known as much for its recruits-to-NBA pipeline as for its winning ways on the floor. But right now, the Wildcats are no longer more talented than the rest of the convention. On Saturday, the Tigers had the clear top NBA prospect in Jabari Smith, who could be the No. 1 pick in the June draft. Smith's frontcourt partner Walker Kessler was a former five-star recruit and had one of the best transfers in the game this past spring. Alan Flanigan, another Tiger, is also on the NBA draft board, and the rest of the Tigers roster is filled with former four-star recruits and top transfers.
And it's not just Auburn that's loaded. Alabama, which won the SEC last season, has assembled a recruiting machine that almost rivals its football program and won in Seattle against Gonzaga earlier this season. Will Wade has earned his share of headlines for his supposedly shady recruiting strategy, but he's made a consistent winner at LSU. Tennessee has become a recruiting powerhouse under Rick Barnes and is a regular in the AP Top 25. And Arkansas, perhaps the SEC's second-best hoops program behind Kentucky, went to the Elite Eight in 2021 for the first time in 25 years.
SEC basketball is no longer just about Kentucky. And with the ACC currently having its worst season in recent history and great coaches Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams having ended their careers, we are at the beginning of a new era of basketball in the Southeast: one where the SEC replaces the ACC. overcomes.
These SEC football powers were already flexing their muscles in recruiting hardwoods. 1 overall pick at Auburn, given the crowds seen at Auburn Arena this weekend and the largely zero opportunities that come with playing in these college towns? In addition, Texas and Oklahoma are on track to join the league, with new coaches who brought their previous schools into the Final Four. The game and the atmosphere As we saw on Saturday, there is a new normal in this league.
Perhaps the greatest basketball game ever played in the city of Auburn, the Tigers met from the moment. He started slow and dug himself into a two-point opening deficit, but he never showed any nervousness against the prevalent hoops program in the league. And though Kentucky was no doubt an early loss to Tyty Washington with an ankle injury, Auburn eventually imposed his will on the game and looked worthy of being the No. 1 team in Monday's polls.
The Tigers won the rebounding battle 27–26, a remarkable feat against the best rebounding team in college basketball (and the best rebounder in Oscar Tshibwe). He took an easy look at the rim for Kessler, who led all scorers with 19 points. And he took advantage of Kentucky's miscalculations in the act of shooting to give the Tigers free points and provoke an already flaming Auburn crowd, namely fouls on several jump-shooters. The party is just getting started on the grounds, and that party can't stop until the Tigers are officially No. 1 in the country, come Monday afternoon.
Kentucky isn't going anywhere. With Tshiebwe, a hopefully healthy Washington and experience surrounding that star pairing, the Wildcats have a legitimate chance of making it to the Final Four. And Calipari has three five-star recruits signed in the 2022 class and a fourth in Shadowrun Sharp who enrolled early to join the Wildcats for the remainder of this season. Big Blue Nation is back in the national conversation after a historically poor 2020-21 season, and seeing what Calipari has done with transfers like Tshibwe and Kellan Grady, it should scare the rest of men's college basketball.
But all Kentucky's days at the SEC are gone. Nate Oates of Pearl, Wade, Barnes, Alabama, and Eric Musselman of Arkansas have made it very clear. There's certainly no shortage of resources to build powerhouses at these football-first schools, and days like Saturday prove that if you build it, the fans will come.