akillshot

ABW0004, I always enjoy this thread each year. Thanks for your efforts on this in the past and for continuing it. War Eagle!

Glad someone decided to add a comment to this thread to bring it back to the top. Truly a great memory that never gets old.

Definitely will be rooting for this guy. He sounds like a fantastic young man.

Cole, fully agree that we are not there. It was more of the fact that someone national was referring to us as a basketball power. Kinda neat to see national people putting Auburn and basketball power in same sentence.

I did like Evans's phrasing in his tweet "Could the G-League be next for top-ranked junior Jon Kuminga? They make his final list, as do four other basketball powers." Auburn is now a basketball power thanks to Bruce and the guys.

Funniest Auburn thing I've seen in the last few days. Thanks for clueing the board in.

https://www.si.com/college/2020/03/19/christian-dawkins-documentary-will-wade-sean-miller Couldn't figure out how to copy the article but here's the lead: Dawkins Documentary Provides Damning Evidence Against Will Wade And Sean Miller In HBO's upcoming Christian Dawkins documentary, interviews with Dawkins and wiretapped audio further implicate LSU coach Will Wade and Arizona's Sean Miller in the college basketball corruption investigation. That "strong ass offer" might finally get more review.

Steeleagle, I paraphrased your "answers" in my email to AD Greene. Great points and I hope you don't mind that I "borrowed" them. The young ladies/athletes deserve better. War Eagle!

Enjoyed the game so much, I watched it again today. Both fan bases can complain about the officiating because they did miss calls and they particularly let the some physical fouls go in the early going. However, in my uneducated review, I did not see any real bias in calls. It looked they missed calls for both teams equally. The only officiating item that I don't have a clue about was the technical on Bruce. In the playback before the foul call against us on the drive by Maxey (or Quigley), you can see him being typically demonstrative on the sidelines. It appeared that the technical was made after the foul by the ref that was under the basket, not the one standing closest to Bruce. After the technical, Bruce yelling "Throw me out" was hysterical but live I was concerned they might take him up on it. After suffering through the Lebo and particularly Barbee years, it's great to watch Bruce and Auburn basketball for the years since he arrived. I look forward to AU continuing to climb as a basketball school.

The thing about this team is they are tough, physically and mentally (most times). They just play hard. It's not pretty lots of times (downright ugly some times) but they just keep coming, particularly on defense. Also, I think J'von deserves a few props tonight - 4 assists, only 1 turnover, 5 rebounds (2nd on team with 3 others), reasonable defense and one tremendous block. War Eagle!

Javon McCormick: Our Time: Why giving up on my dreams was never an option By J'Von McCormick 1/6/2020 5:00:00 PM I love the game of basketball. The game doesn’t owe me anything. But I owe it everything. It kept me out of trouble growing up. It’s taken me to new places, introduced me to new people, including some of my closest friends now, and it’s helped me become a better man. But more than anything, basketball has taught me to never give up on my dreams. On my left forearm, there’s a tattoo. It’s younger me sitting on a basketball in front of my house looking up at the goal. It’s on the street in New Orleans where I grew up, the same street that was really bad with gang violence. Not everybody made it out. Some of my friends were in gangs. But me looking up at that basketball goal symbolizes me looking up at my dream. Back then, that dream was to play Division I basketball. We eventually moved from New Orleans to Texas when I was in high school. My family wanted me and my brothers to get away from the violence and play sports because they knew how much we loved it and they knew the God-gifted abilities we had. Here’s the thing. I’ve been short or small my whole life, so people have always counted me out. It didn’t help that when I moved to Texas, I was playing around guys like De’Aaron Fox and Carsen Edwards who are both in the NBA now. They were the highly-recruited guys who got the big offers, and I always got overlooked. I had some small D-I offers coming out of high school, but I wanted the chance to play at a high-major program. So I felt like I had to take the junior college path and start from the bottom. I knew coming in that JUCO was going to be tough. Some guys that I knew went JUCO and they said basically if you make it out of there, you’ll be good. So my mindset was I’m going to stick through it. I know it’s going to be hard. I know I’m going to want to quit or I’m going to want to give up. I just have to stick through it. So that’s what I did. After playing two years, the hard work paid off. I was already receiving interest from Virginia Tech and Wichita State when Auburn called and offered a scholarship. We took a visit. I came here and saw the facilities. The coaches went over the plan with me. I knew that Jared (Harper) and Bryce (Brown) were both coming back, but I liked that they were the main founders of this team. I didn’t mind coming off the bench. I could have gone to Virginia Tech or Wichita State and been the guy, but I knew coming out of high school I was always the guy and that didn’t really work out for me. So instead I chose to come to Auburn knowing I wasn’t going to be the guy. Little did I know then that we would go to the Final Four my first year here. It’s crazy how I came to Auburn and then we went to the Final Four and won the SEC championship. During that run, it just felt like we were going to win every game. We grew together as a team. We became closer as friends, family, all of that. I'll never forget that run and that team. It was just amazing. This year has been amazing, too. For us seniors, it just shows that you have to be patient and stay ready, stay right and just keep working. Those guys before us put in a lot of work, too, so it’s good that they’re succeeding right now. We just had to wait our turn. Now that our turn is here, we can showcase what we’ve been working for our whole life. This team is not all that different than last year’s team. There’s still one goal. It’s not like one person has their own goal. Everybody is bought into the system, everybody is focused and knowing that if we win as a team, everybody is going to eat. Looking back at who I was to who I am now, I’m a different person. I’m less emotional on the court, more relaxed. That comes from experience. Off the court, I would say I’ve matured more as a person, especially coming from different situations like playing in JUCO. I really had to humble myself. I still look down at my forearm from time to time as a reminder. It’s hard to believe how far I’ve come, and it’s all proof that you should never give up on your dreams. My dream now is to graduate, play professional basketball and show kids that taking the JUCO path is not always a bad idea. You just have to fight through it, overcome your obstacles. Anyone can play D-1. You just have to be focused.

AuburnTigers.com is doing a series of articles where each of the 5 seniors tell their story in their own words. Two have been published so far. First up is: Our Time: Why basketball is only the beginning to who I am By Anfernee McLemore 12/17/2019 9:00:00 AM Every basketball team I’ve ever been on, there are the superstars and then there are the other guys – the guys willing to support the players that are going to make those big shots. The superstars are important. I played with T.J. Dunans my freshman year. Bryce Brown, Jared Harper and even Chuma Okeke to an extent handled that role the last two years. You need those players. But what makes a successful team is having those other guys that are willing to put themselves out of the limelight so the whole team can be in the limelight. That’s who I am. That’s who I’ve always strived to be. I want to be the guy who helped his team win rings and who was there to help other players achieve their goals. Obviously, basketball was a platform for me to achieve my dreams of going to college and getting my degree. But basketball won’t last forever. If it doesn’t take me to professional work, I still have that degree I can fall back on. I just want to be remembered as the guy that won three championships in four years at Auburn and was part of a legacy team that will stand as the benchmark as other great teams come and go at this university. It’s funny. When I first got to Auburn, I was like any other player in the country. It was all things basketball. I had a laser focus on trying to play professionally. I still did well in the classroom. Growing up as a military kid, grades were always important to me. But my future was on the court. That all changed my sophomore year when we were playing on the road at South Carolina. I went to grab a rebound, and the next thing I knew my season was over. The injury was crushing, especially knowing that I was leading the SEC in shot blocks at that point. But it also sort of pivoted my career. It opened my eyes that basketball might not be the only future that I have or that might be in store for me. I turned my attention toward the classroom where I focused on graduating early and getting the most of my scholarship educationally. In case I didn’t decide to play professionally, I would have something to fall back on. Not even something to fall back on. Something to strive toward to where I could take a position utilizing my degree or utilizing my talents on the basketball court and be equally as happy. I don’t think I would’ve seen it that way before the injury. Over the summer, that dream became a reality. I walked across the stage at graduation with my whole family in attendance. I still carry my pocket-size degree in my wallet everywhere I go just because I’m so proud of it. But I didn’t feel like I was done at Auburn. Graduating was more like just another step on the ladder. With one degree in hand, I was eager to earn a second one. So next August, I will graduate with a master’s degree in finance from Auburn. The thing about Auburn is wherever I go, it will always be a place I can call home. It’s a place that has shown me love unconditionally, win or lose. Like with school, I don’t feel like I’m done with basketball either. It was hard coming back from injury. There was the mental hurdle of gaining confidence and realizing that my legs were going to be back under me when I jumped. It definitely affected my timing as far as shot blocking and things like that. It took a while to get over that. It wasn’t until SEC play the next year that I truly started feeling confident again. And still I had that hesitation until we got to the NCAA Tournament. That’s when I put everything behind me and said OK, we’re going to win. I’m going to play. If I get hurt, at least it will be in a big tournament game. I ended up having one of my best runs as a basketball player in the tournament where I was playing my most dominant basketball. It was also a dream come true to be able to make it to Minneapolis and experience everything that goes with the Final Four. Seeing my face on the side of a hotel, that’s not something I ever imagined would happen to me. It was amazing to see. But now coming into this season, coming off that Final Four run, my mindset hasn’t changed. Every year for the last three years, I had a reason to be an underdog. I had a chip on my shoulder. This being my last season, I have to come in with that chip still on my shoulder. Yes, we had a lot of great players last year. Most of those players are gone now. We have to prove we can win without those players. We have a lot of talent on the team right now, and we just want to show that we can still win. We’ve got a great coach leading us into the games, and we can still continue to make history for Auburn. I just want to do my part to help the team. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. After this season, I don’t know what the future holds. Maybe there’s a future in basketball. Maybe there’s not. What I do know is that I just had a baby, and I will work hard every day to be a good father to Maverick. I’m getting married in August and when I do, I will strive to be a good husband. And no matter what comes next with my career, I will keep pushing. The thing about Auburn is wherever I go, it will always be a place I can call home. It’s a place that has shown me love unconditionally, win or lose. From the season that we had my freshman year to now, the love has always been the same. When I went down with my injury, I got countless amounts of letters sent to me – from social media to actual physical mail. I will forever be grateful, forever be indebted to that kind of support that we have. Now let’s go make history … again.

His Instagram message. I wish him only the best

Ellitor, glad Super 7 and your 16 hour days are over so you can get back to your "real" (and unpaid) job. 😁 Seriously, thanks for the updates to the OP and for the new thread for the upcoming signing date. Also, thanks to others who have been providing info over the last few weeks. War Eagle, all!

Great work, ToraGirl! Watched again last night. Does bring joy to my heart several times, most of which you hit in your poem. War Eagle!