Top ranked Auburn has two road races this week. The tigers will be preferred in both, but can also lose theoretically. So with this in mind I asked Kyle Boone a question Sunday’s episode of The Eye On College Basketball Podcast.
Here the question is: have we reached the point where Auburn, which is number 1 in the updated CBS Sports Top 25 and 1 daily college basketball ranking on Monday morning, could take a quadrant 1 loss – which is a loss at LSU on Wednesday or a Loss at Ole Miss on Saturday would be, based on the current projections – and still worth the number 1 ranking list?
Boone said yes.
I agree.
It is clear that we can have a long debate about which team of college basketball is best – Auburn, Duke, Houston, Iowa State or someone else. — because best is a subjective term. But there is really no debate about which team has the best resume of college basketball.
It is a lot Auburn.
The Tigers are 18-1 general, 6-0 in the sec And 11-1 in Kwadrant 1. Do you realize how great 11-1 in Kwadrant 1 is compared to the rest of the sport?
There is no other team in the country with 11 Q1 victories. Or 10. Or nine. Oregon is in second place National in Q1 victories with eight – and no one else has more than six. So, for the conversation, say that Auburn will lose at LSU on Wednesday. If it happened, Bruce Pearl’s tigers would still be 18-2 in general with a 11-2 record in Kwadrant 1.
Duke is number 2 in the top 25 and 1.
Again, if Auburn loses at LSU on Wednesday, the Tigers (based on current projections) would still be 18-2 with a 11-2 record in Quadrant 1. At his best, Duke, on Thursday morning, are also 18-2- But with only a 5-2 record in Kwadrant 1. Because of my mathematics, that means, even with a loss at LSU on Wednesday, no. 1 Auburn would have six Q1 victories than no. 2 Duke and the same number of losses. Given that I always try to replicate the selection committee more or less, and given that I believe that every member of the selection committee would rank Auburn’s CV above Duke’s CV with a brain, even after a hypothetical loss at LSU by Auburn (Auburn ( And, even though Duke owns a victory in December at Cameron Indoor Stadium), I am forced to believe that the Tigers are like a golfer with something like a 3-shot lead on the field. I would not advise them to place a tee shot in the rough, to miss the green and bogey the next hole, so to speak. But even if they did, they would still be for everyone else.
That is actually Auburn now.
The Tigers have put together one of the best starts through 19 games in recent memory and are projected by Kenpom.com to win the toughest competition in the country with four games. That is crazy and why Pearl Auburn to his second last four, or brings the very first national championship ever, is very much in the game for the winning coach in program history.