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Auburn

Jay Williams puts Auburn dominance, National Championship chances in historical perspective

IMG_6598by:Nick Kosko•02/08/25•

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Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

ESPN’s Jay Williams put Auburn’s dominance into historical perspective and basically anything shy of a national title this season would be disappointing.

At 21-1, the Tigers are ranked No. 1 in the country and rolling right now. They have not lost a single game in SEC play and Bruce Pearl and company don’t plan on doing that against Florida Saturday.

When Williams dove into the numbers, Auburn’s doing something equaling the best teams of the last quarter century.

“This is banner material,” Williams said on SportsCenter. “This is legacy. When you talk about the adjusted net rating for Auburn through KenPom, +37.1. That’s the best team in college basketball since my Duke team in 2001 in the last 24 years. Man like that’s what we’re talking about here with this Auburn team. Now, people can boo it. People cannot like it. They’re playing in the best conference in the SEC, top to bottom. 

“The fact that they are undefeated in that conference, the fact that their only loss is to Duke with the way they’re playing, Johni Broome, you talk about National Player of the Year (potential), and you’re talking about a national championship. That’s what the ceiling is for the Auburn Tigers.”

Heck, with the way Auburn has played through a gauntlet, you would think it’s football! Pearl actually compared the SEC schedule to football this past season, and appreciated his team’s valiant efforts.

“It does remind me a little bit of SEC football, in a sense that if you look at, just take Georgia and Ohio State, you know, Ohio State has a couple of big games in the Big Ten, you know, obviously, Michigan’s a big game, Penn State’s a big game, you know,” Pearl said to Coach K on Sirius XM. “But, you know, I don’t know the strength of the football conference. It’s not like the SEC and so every single Saturday, you got a chance to get physically whooped, mentally whooped. 

“And if you look at the number of games that Georgia had to play, for example, you know, during the course of the regular season. Meanwhile, you know, some of the teams that were in it, like Ohio State, or even Notre Dame, man, they were excited in January about playing great teams because they only played one or two great teams during the course of the regular season.”