Auburn knocks off Georgia with Kentucky next
Auburn basketball has reached mythical levels of fun.
And it’s just January.
And No.12 Kentucky comes to town on Saturday.
It’s going to be cold, cold, cold, too, so if the kids are planning a tent city in the middle of campus for Friday night (or Thursday and Friday night because I’m not going to be the one to underestimate The Jungle) then Auburn coach Bruce Pearl might want to think about chipping in for some portable heaters. We only want to see Auburn Arena on fire figuratively when Kentucky comes to town, and y’all know there’s a precedent for that statement.
“We’ve got to step up in a huge way for Kentucky,” Pearl said on Wednesday night after the 83-60 victory against Georgia. “I think it’s one of the best teams John’s (Calipari) had in years. They’ve got size at the rim. They’re tremendous in transition…It’ll be a clash of the titans, that’s for sure. A lot of great players on the court on Saturday and CBS will be in the house.”
Tipoff is at noon, standing-room only tickets for Auburn Arena are going for $300 and to witness a game there this season is worth every penny. What is happening in Auburn with this basketball team is a modern-era, American sports phenomenon. The Final Four run, turns out, was just a warm up. The great dance is in full swing now, and the scene against Georgia looked like a Game 7 in the NBA playoffs … and it was a church night … in Auburn, Alabama.
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Free and young, self-aware and selling collegiate gold, cramped and cracked out, Auburn Arena screams hellfire when 7-1 center Walker Kessler swats a shot. He had six blocks against Georgia to go along with 15 points and six rebounds. The walls of the place heave and breathe like a living thing when point guard Wendell Green, Jr., lobs an alley-oop. Green, off the bench, had 12 points, 11 assists, four steals and three rebounds in 26 minutes.
Ranked No.2 in the country and with a record of 17-1 overall and 6-0 in the SEC, Auburn is a complete team, and deep, and the pieces all fit like an angry symphony because they all play defense like first-chair lunatics. Bruce Pearl knew from the beginning, too. This offseason, when he visited Birmingham, Pearl said he had no idea what to expect from this team because so many of the players were new. Just going to roll the ball out there and see what happens, he said.
Smile.
Wink.
Light the match and walk away. Arson (and the meme machine) came early for Georgia and Auburn made it feel personal. K.D. Johnson, who might be the only thing in Auburn with more swagger than Aubie, was deep fried from the beginning and all ghost-pepper grin.
Johnson drips sauce like Teen Wolf dripped sauce. From the fangs, buddy. Howl’n at the full moon. A coach’s dream and every opposing team’s worst nightmare, Johnson transferred from Georgia to Auburn for this season and it is making all the difference for the Tigers during the long conference schedule. Against Georgia, he had 12 points, two rebounds, two steals and an assist in 23 minutes.
How to describe Johnson’s game? Think Pat Beverley on bath salts.
Poor Georgia. Poor Tom Crean, but his team (5-13, 0-5 in the SEC) is so bad, bless his big-ole heart. Crean was supposed to come down South and put on a basketball clinic. Hasn’t happened, and now it looks like he might be cooked. How, though? Bruce Pearl, that’s how.
The fire of Auburn hoops is consuming all the oxygen from Athens to Atlanta, and devoured Crean’s big dreams in the conflagration. The Bulldogs’ halftime deficit of 13 points felt like a small victory. The 23-point rout was inevitable from the beginning, but the Jungle, Auburn’s beautiful student section, never sat down.
Auburn is great because that student section is the envy of the entire country. That includes Big Blue, and when Kentucky comes to town every single blue-chip basketball prospect in the country will be watching the game. And for football coach Bryan Harsin’s sake, we can only hope that every five-star football recruit left on the big board is in the front row.
Basketball sells football in Auburn now, and this writer can’t think of a better way to frame the Tigers’ unprecedented, deep-fried hoops revolution any better than that.