WBB Game 30: Vanderbilt Commodores at Auburn Tigers

12-17 (3-12) AP: NR Coaches: NR NET: 99

February 26, 2023 3:00PM CT at Neville Arena SECN+ | Live Radio Call

14-13 (4-11) AP: NR Coaches: NR NET: 82

I’ve always thought this tiger print Survivor logo is one of the weirdest sports logos out there. It’s just, so bleh. And how do I think we’ll far against the “bleh”burn Tiger you might ask? Well, I think we have a decent chance to come out on top. Our teams are statistically pretty even, although we have a slight edge in shooting and scoring. They have, as has always been the case this season, a much fuller active roster than we do, but we’ve been here plenty all year and I think we know how to play through to our strengths at this point.

As for what’s on the line, well, it’s a little complicated. Auburn, Florida, and Vanderbilt are all jockeying for the same couple of seeds in the conference tournament. If we lose, we will be the twelfth seed and will most likely rematch A&M following their surprising win against Kentucky. If we win, there’s two ways it could play out. If we win and Florida wins against Missouri, then we’ll be the eleventh seed and will most likely rematch Kentucky. However, if we win and Florida loses, well I had to consort the SEC rulebook for this one. Since Auburn, Florida, and Vanderbilt would all have the same record, we compare the winning percentage of the teams against each other. In this situation, Auburn beat Florida who beat us who beat Auburn and so on ad rock-papers-scissor infinitum. That means we’ve got to look at the second tiebreaker, record against conference teams by seeding. All three teams lost every game they played against the top three seeds of South Carolina, LSU, and Tennessee, so we turn to the likely fourth seed, Ole Miss, who lost to Auburn in overtime earlier this season. Yep, that means Auburn gets the tenth seed, and whether it’s our loss to Florida or Florida’s win over sixthish seed Alabama that comes next, the Gators get the eleventh seed and we get the twelfth seed. So yeah, that’s right, we could win and it wouldn’t even matter, which is at least kinda funny, even if it’s mostly just annoying.

Finally, Bella LaChance was named first-team Academic All-District and Marnelle Garraud was named to the SEC Community Service Team. I never understand the criteria or selection processes behind all the millions of student-athlete awards (although, since we’re on the topic, I did win my high school’s student-athlete award my senior year (so yeah, I’m kind of a big deal)), but it’s still cool whenever anyone gets an award. The award I’d most like to see is a W in our column, though, so I hope all this success doesn’t go to their heads and that we end this season strong.