Going dancing: 9-seed Auburn lands in the Midwest Region, faces 8-seed Iowa in first round
AUBURN — For the fourth time under Bruce Pearl, the Auburn basketball team is headed to the NCAA Tournament. 9-seed Auburn will play 8-seed Iowa in Birmingham, Ala. during the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The game will be played on Thursday.
The game is scheduled to tip at 5:50 pm CT and will be televised on TNT. Jim Nantz, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and Tracy Wolfson will be handling the TV duties.
If they win, they’ll face the winner of 2-seed Houston or 15-seed Northern Kentucky in the second round.
(It would be the fifth time in the last six years if not for the COVID cancelled postseason where the Tigers would have been a fairly high seed after finishing second in the SEC.)
Pearl was an assistant at Iowa from 1986-1992 before earning his first head coaching gig at Southern Indiana.
Auburn has played four games in Birmingham under Pearl. One win over Saint Louis, two wins over UAB and a win over Middle Tennessee State.
Auburn enters the tournament with a 20-12 overall record ranked No. 32 in the latest NET rankings, and having not won two straight games since January.
Auburn finished with a top-20 strength of schedule according to KenPom. NCAA Tournament teams faced includes Texas Southern, Colgate, Northwestern, Memphis, USC, Arkansas (x2), Mississippi State, Texas A&M (x2), West Virginia, Tennessee (x2), Alabama (x2), Missouri and Kentucky. The Tigers finished 7-10 in 16 games against tournament opponents.
Auburn’s 13 tournament opponents during a season is a new school record.
This will be Auburn’s 12th all-time trip to the NCAA Tournament, having won at least one game in 10 straight tournament appearances.
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RELATED: THE FINAL LOOK AT AUBURN’S RESUME PRIOR TO SELECTION SUNDAY
Auburn has some history as a lower-seeded team in the NCAA Tournament, although they’ve never been a 9 seed before.
The last time Auburn was a 10 seed was 2003. Marquis Daniels and Co. led the Tigers to upset wins over 7-seed Saint Joseph’s and 2-seed Wake Forest before losing to 3-seed Syracuse in the Sweet 16. Syracuse went on to win the national title behind freshman phenom Carmello Anthony.
In 2000, 7-seed Auburn defeated 10-seed Creighton in the first round before losing to 2-seed Iowa State in the second round. That Auburn made a run to the SEC Tournament title game before losing to Arkansas, but was reeling late in the season after losing All-SEC player Chris Porter late in the season.
Auburn has been an 8 seed three times and they all happened in consecutive seasons in 1986, 1987 and 1988. The ’86 team won three games before losing in the Elite Eight to 2-seed Louisville. The ’87 team won one game before losing to 1-seed Indiana in the second round. The ’88 team won one game before losing to 1-seed Oklahoma in the second round.
Similar past resumes and profiles to Auburn
According to Bart Torvik analytics, here’s some similar profiles to Auburn’s this season and how they fared in the NCAA Tournament.
“Adj O” is adjusted offensive efficiency. “Adj D” is adjusted defensive efficiency, and “Adj T” is adjusted tempo. You can see, the average wins for teams with similar profiles as the Tigers over the years is essentially one.
And here are similar resumes to Auburn’s from over the years and how they fared in the tournament:
