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Zep Jasper takes a photo with a fan during Auburn’s open practice Thursday in the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, S.C.\u00a0
Auburn guard K.D. Johnson reacts during the second half of a college basketball game against Miami in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Sunday in Greenville, S.C.
It\u2019s a schoolday again here at Auburn. The field trip is over.
Here at Toomer\u2019s Corner, a girl is taking graduation photos. A kid on a bike carefully pedals around wide to try to stay out of the shot. The photographer\u2019s little daughter is running around barefoot on the bricks and there\u2019s a professor within earshot complaining about excused absences and unexcused absences and all that school stuff.
Auburn\u2019s basketball team is back from Greenville, the fans are back from Greenville, with the big postseason trip cut short. And life goes on even as some fans have a hard time with that.
I guess it would make sense for Auburn to have an immature basketball fanbase. In a lot of ways, it is an immature basketball fanbase. It\u2019s not a bad thing; this is new here. Auburn hasn\u2019t dealt with many seasons like this, many endings like this, and that\u2019s partly a testament to the new heights the team\u2019s gone to in recent years.
Auburn peaked at the wrong time. Why? It\u2019s hard to tell. Asking me? Maybe they just ran too thin on scoring options. North Carolina beat down Duke at the end of the regular season and it did it by not substituting at all in the second half of the game. UNC really came out of halftime, sent their five best dudes out there and just let them do it all. It can work.
It could\u2019ve worked for Auburn. Devan Cambridge\u2019s shot was off and Allen Flanigan wasn\u2019t 100-percent, and maybe more opportunities went to Jabari Smith and Walker Kessler down the stretch because they\u2019re so good and that\u2019s great until they\u2019re off, and maybe then Auburn was stuck with less scoring options than it would\u2019ve liked to have looking back. Maybe it was a valid strategy that just didn\u2019t work this time.
That\u2019s just what I think might have happened. It doesn\u2019t mean anything more than what you think or what anyone else thinks. Everyone can think what they want and these days everyone can say what they want, and it\u2019s weird in a way that people are this downtrodden and this upset, that we all have these opinions and explanations, because it\u2019s not like anyone thought Auburn would never lose again. That\u2019s not what this was about.
At the end of the day, this season will be remembered for the way the team, for however long, made the center of the basketball world this lovely village on the Plains.
That\u2019s never been done before. Charles Barkley never did it, Chris Porter never did it, the 2019 dudes didn\u2019t do it and it\u2019s the kind of institutional growth that\u2019ll last a lot longer than a scoring slump.
The arena was on fire this season. For the first time ever, Auburn was the college basketball mountaintop. Auburn moved to No. 1 in the AP rankings for the first time ever and everyone around the country raved about the home-court advantage in front of The Jungle. Auburn never lost at home. Auburn never even won by any less than nine here. Only Kentucky managed to not get blitzed by double digits.
That\u2019s the stride forward Auburn made this season, and as another tall housing development breaks ground downtown here, Auburn keeps growing and changing but you know it keeps being Auburn.
The sun comes up and life goes on and for this next photo the girl taking graduation pictures pulls out a shaker from under her gown.
You win or you go home, right?
Auburn lost, so home it is.
Time to get back, to get ready for next season, or the NBA Draft, or whatever is next for this young lady who\u2019s graduating \u2014 and whatever is next for this place.
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Zep Jasper takes a photo with a fan during Auburn’s open practice Thursday in the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, S.C.\u00a0
Auburn guard K.D. Johnson reacts during the second half of a college basketball game against Miami in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Sunday in Greenville, S.C.
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