Auburn basketball’s NCAA Tournament résumé for March Madness: Jan. 12

Auburn basketball‘s first full week of SEC play provided it with some harsh, but mostly unsurprising, realities

With two road trips, the second-ranked Tigers managed to come out of it 2-0, but their victories came by an average of 4.0 points, avoiding a furious comeback from Texas on Tuesday before having to mount a comeback of their own — without All-American Johni Broome — to beat South Carolina on Saturday.

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Still, Auburn enters another week with just one loss and an undefeated record against its conference. Even with the status of Broome still unknown, the NCAA Tournament projections are favoring the Tigers to be the highest seed in the field of 64 come March Madness.

Those projections are warranted, as Auburn’s favored highly by several criteria the selection committee looks at in making its assessments, in addition to subjective factors like the “eyeball test.” Among them:

• Record: The team’s overall record, conference record, and nonconference record.

• Strength of schedule: The strength of the teams the team played against.

• Head-to-head results: The results of games between the teams being compared.

• Conference championships: Whether a conference championship was won in the regular season, or tournament.

• Common opponents: The results of games against common opponents.

• Adjusted Net Efficiency (NET): The NCAA’s preferred metric measuring a team’s overall performance during the regular season.

• Team Value Index: A results-oriented component of the NET that ranks teams based on who they beat and where they played.

• Rating Percentage Index (RPI): A formula that ranks teams using a team’s winning percentage, opponents’ success and opponents’ strength of schedule.

While Auburn is comfortably seeded as the best team in the country, it’ll be looking to maintain that status after being on the wrong end of a first-round upset in last year’s tournament, when 13-seed Yale spoiled the Tigers’ tournament hopes in Spokane, Washington.

Each week, the Montgomery Advertiser will take a look back at the Tigers’ previous week and assess their NCAA Tournament résumé. Here’s what the latest seven days have turned in.

How Auburn basketball fared last week

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• No. 2 Auburn 87, Texas 82 (Jan. 7 at Moody Center): The Tigers held a 12-point advantage at the half, but their second-half defense didn’t do much to stop the Longhorns, who scored 55 points in the game’s final 20 minutes, led by a red-hot Arthur Kaluma, who turned in a 34-point performance.

• No. 2 Auburn 66, South Carolina 63 (Jan. 11 at Colonial Life Arena): Auburn got beat early where it was best, in the front court. It trailed by six points at the half, but Broome’s exit around the 13:45 mark of the second half prefaced a turnaround, which saw the Tigers hold the Gamecocks to just 23 second-half points.

NO BROOME, NO PROBLEM: How Auburn basketball staved off South Carolina’s upset bid

Auburn basketball’s NET ranking

All rankings entering Monday’s games.

Auburn basketball’s KenPom ranking

All rankings entering Monday.

• Net Rating: +35.89 (No. 1)

• Offensive efficiency: 130.2 (No. 1)

• Defensive efficiency: 94.3 (No. 20)

Here’s where Auburn sits in other metric rankings:

Auburn basketball’s Bracketology projections

• CBS Sports (as of Jan. 10): Top overall seed, South Region (Atlanta)

• ESPN (as of Jan. 10): Top overall seed, South Region (Atlanta)

• Fox (as of Jan. 10): Top overall seed, South Region (Atlanta)

Next up for Auburn basketball

• Matchup: No. 2 Auburn (15-1, 3-0 SEC) vs. No. 13 Mississippi State (14-2, 2-1)

  • Opponent’s latest result: No. 6 Kentucky 95, No. 13 Mississippi State 90 at Humphrey Coliseum (Starkville, Miss.)

• Tipoff: 6 p.m. CST Tuesday; Neville Arena

• TV/Radio: SEC Network; WLWI FM 92.3 (Montgomery), WGZZ FM 94.3 (Auburn)

Adam Cole is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at acole@gannett.com or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @colereporter.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Assessing Auburn basketball’s NCAA Tournament résumé for March Madness