TeamZero77

This was the first time in 21 years that Auburn didn't have a player selected in the first 4 rounds of the NFL Draft. 😥 Nehemiah Pritchett is the only player we've had selected so far. He went in the 5th round today. We've got 5 total players that are projected to be drafted and they're all on the defensive side of the ball. Somebody mentioned this recently but our last 3 head coaches have all been "offensive guru's" but we always struggle on the offensive side of the ball and our players that get drafted seem to mostly be defensive and special teams players. Weird huh?

I can tell you what alot of the hate is right now by Auburn fans towards Aden; he has the ability to be a really good player and fans are worried Nate Oats will get the most out of Aden and it will make Bruce look like he isn't as good of a developer or HC as Nate Oats. Deep down, that's a BIG part of all this hate even though nobody will admit it due to pride. 95% of this is a Nate Oats and Bama vs Bruce Pearl and Auburn thing and most are worried we won't come out on a the winning side of this deal longterm. Just read through all of the game threads other than the Georgia game and most everybody wanted Aden gone. Well, he's gone and now look at those same people complaining.

Yeah, I agree about fans being fickle. I'm guilty as well. I remember being so pissed off about us hiring Gene Chizik as HC but after he started putting together a really good staff, I was 100% onboard. (Hell, I would've been onboard regardless) It was pretty funny yesterday when ESPN Sportscenter had Mark Pope on and they were asking him about Kentucky and replacing Calipari, etc. The usual stuff they always ask. Pope called Kentucky the "Cougars" on 2 different occasions during the 2 minute interview. That's an easy slip up since he's been head coach of the BYU Cougars for the past 5 years but I'm sure some of the UK fans are keeping receipts.

Most of the Kentucky fanbase wanted Calipari fired the past couple years. I've seen some of them say "Calipari should do what's right and just step down as our HC." So now he has stepped down at Kentucky and taken the Arkansas job, while Kentucky has gone out and hired Mark Pope to replace him. And guess what........Big Blue Nation seems to be losing their minds over Mark Pope being their new HC and now the fans are pissed off at Calipari for leaving!!!😂 They're blaming Calipari for not giving the Kentucky AD and BOT a notice that he was leaving. They think it blindsided the Kentucky AD and BOT and that they weren't in a position to find a top tier coach to replace Calipari. I think alot of Big Blue Nation's anger (and their pride won't let them admit it) is that they were publically turned down by Hurley, Oats, Wright, Drew and Donovan. The PTB at Kentucky seem to have settled on Mark Pope because they knew he is an alum and former player on the 1996 Kentucky team that won a Natty and he wouldn't turn them down. Pope's average win/loss record over 5 years at BYU is 22-10 and he's made the NCAA Tourney twice but has never made it past the 1st round. Knowing how arrogant Calipari is, you know he is loving this Mark Pope hire because it's a "Be careful what you wish for" moment directed straight at Big Blue Nation.

If Billy Donovan does come back to Kentucky to be head coach, he will be hell to deal with in my opinion. The guy won back to back Natty's at Florida in 2006 and 2007 and also took them to another National Championship game appearance in 2000. Then he took OKC Thunder to the NBA Finals. The question will be does he want to recruit again and deal with NIL and the new transfer portal or does he want to stay with the Chicago Bulls.

Just listening right now on Finebaum's show and he led off with Pete Thamel from ESPN mentioning who Kentucky is rumored to be interested in. Thamel said the top name is Billy Donovan because he won 2 Natty's at Florida and was an assistant under Pitino at Kentucky so he already knows the program and area. Donovan is coaching the Chicago Bulls and Thamel said if this search runs long, you'll know it's Donovan and they're just waiting on his NBA season to end. He said if it's not Donovan, it will likely be Scott Drew that coaches Baylor. His buyout is small and he has won a Natty recently. He said the names being thrown out by fans and podcasters like Nate Oats, Bruce Pearl, Jay Wright, Mick Cronin and Dan Hurley simply aren't true. The buyouts are really large for some of those coaches and Jay Wright has repeatedly said he won't coach college basketball again and if he wanted to, he would've never left Villanova. Thamel said the buyouts seem small compared to college football but in college basketball, no matter the school, AD's and boosters simply refuse to pay big buyouts like Nate Oats currently has. So Billy Donovan or Scott Drew according to ESPN.

I think UConn had only trailed for 28 seconds before tonight. Hurley's got to settle them down at halftime. Grant Hill was right a bit ago when he said Bama wants a track meet and will run UConn to death and UConn seems to be playing right into that trap. If Bama wins tonight, they'll run Eady to death in the title game. He's 300 pounds and he can play 40 minutes if he needs to but he can barely get up and down the floor at times. Against NC State tonight, the ref's didn't call a foul for nearly 7 minutes and Eady was literally walking up the court on fast breaks because he was so gassed.

If Bama pulls this game off, I think they're destined to win it all. I saw a stat earlier that said 85% of Alabama's points this year came from shots at the rim or 3 point shots. Free throws weren't included in that stat. Oats is analytics 100% just like Lane Kiffin is in football.

The Iowa vs UConn women's game drew the most viewers ever for a basketball game on ESPN, men or women. The most viewed basketball game on ESPN was 2018 Boston vs Cleveland ECF until last nights game beat that. The article I read said last nights game got nearly 15 million viewers. I've never watched much women's basketball unless Auburn has been good but I've watched every women's Elite 8 and Final 4 game this year and the games are exciting down to the final buzzer (in most of the games).

I just don't see Zach Edey's game transferring to the NBA where he will be a starter for anyone. He doesn't shoot 3's and he is slow. His style was needed years ago but not so much now in the current NBA.

I agree. Similar to Bobby Portis or how Robert Horry was. Not an All Star but a solid player that can start or be a 6th man and play 10 years in the league, maybe longer.

I think Knecht in the pro's will be similar to Grayson Allen.

Purdue with Edey and UConn with Clingan are proving that if you have a 7 foot center that can play, you'll go very deep in the tourney. That's how we made that deep run in the tournament with Walker Kessler.........oh wait 😏

Wouldn't that be wild if the national title game ends up being Alabama vs Tennessee? Two big rivals that both lost their opening game of the SEC Tourney.

Actually a stat was posted somewhere on here saying this years Duke team has had the easiest run ever. Their four games so far have been against #1 seed, #11 seed, #12 seed and #13 seed. And in the win over #1 seed Houston, their star PG Jamal Shead went out in the first half with a bad ankle injury and didn't return which made it alot easier on Duke. Bama's beaten a #1, #6, #12 and #13. Not a gauntlet at all but not as easy as Duke has faced. If Bama beats UConn (I doubt they will), they'll deserve all the praise as bad as it would suck.

Yeah he did really well when LSU hired him. They took a chance on him and he had never coached in the southeast that I know of. LSU also hired Les Miles and he was a Michigan guy that had been at Oklahoma State as a HC. So LSU has taken chances on coaches without southeastern experience and its paid off with Saban, Miles and now Brian Kelly. When Florida hired Urban Meyer he had been an asst. coach in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and Colorado and was the HC for 2 years at Bowling Green and then his time at Utah. He came to Florida and won a Natty in year 2 and another in year 4. So not ever coaching in the southeast didn't hurt him either. I think if a coach is really good, he can go anywhere and win if the college he coaches at has a strong athletics department. Florida, LSU and Alabama do well in most all of their sports programs. Heck, Bruce Pearl attended Boston College, coached at Iowa as an asst., Southern Indiana and Milwaukee as a HC. Tennessee hired him and he had no experience in the south but he took off just fine at Tennessee and recruiting was doing fine. I just feel like if a coach is good at what he does, it travels. The program has to be behind that coach as well.

I just looked up Nate Oats coaching career and he has NEVER been in the south until he took this Alabama job. Born in Wisconsin, coached high school ball in Wisconsin and then coached a very small college in Wisconsin and then went to coach Buffalo when Bobby Hurley left. Then Alabama hired him. That's his whole career!! Strange how he's never been in the south but then comes here and recruits well and has won alot of games. Now they've hired Kalen DeBoer in football and he's never been in the south either. If he does well at Bama then maybe it isn't so much where the person is from but more about how well the athletics department is ran. After Harsin bombed, all I've heard is that a coach that's never been in the south will never win. Could it possibly be that our athletics department isn't ran as well as Alabama's is? I mean, Brian Kelly has done fine at LSU and he's never been in the south that I know of.

This is a 3 point shootout for Clemson vs Bama

UConn is 10-0 the last 2 years in the NCAA Tournament and all 10 wins have been by 13 points or more. No other team in history has accomplished that. If Alabama holds on to beat Clemson, they'll face UConn in the Final Four. Beating UConn would be something like Bama and Nate Oats would pull off even though I don't think they'll do it. I've seen some people saying Bama doesn't belong here because they lost 10 regular season games. Our Final Four team in 2019 lost 9 regular season games and finished tied for 4th in the SEC regular season. It's all about getting hot at the right time and getting the right matchups.

Bammer is hanging around with UNC. Hubert Davis has to tell his guys to slow this pace down. They're playing right into what Nate Oates wants....a very fast pace!

Excellent post!!

You ain't kidding about Virginia!! I know Tony Bennett's teams have always been known as boring because they play so slow on the offensive side but his guys took it to a whole different level against Colorado State!! They went 12 minutes and 35 seconds of game time without a single point scored. In real time it was 52 minutes. 😂 They had 14 points at halftime!! What a mess. Remember in 2018 they were the first #1 seed in history to lose to a #16 seed? This is karma for that no-call on the double dribble in the 2019 Final Four.

DAMN, I love me some March Madness!!!!! Nothing else like it.

3 years in a row that Kentucky has lost in the opening round. The Kentucky fans are on Calipari's ass and they have every right to be. No wins in the SEC Tourney or the NCAA Tourney this year. Great recruiter but he's been average, by Kentucky standards, since 2019 when we beat him in the Elite 8. Tennessee fans are the same way about Rick Barnes. If Tennessee loses saturday in the round of 32, they'll start rumbling louder. They're complaining that he's just a regular season coach but struggles during tournament time everywhere he's coached.

Does anybody remember the story about Finebaum getting his ass chewed out at Coleman Coliseum by Mark Gottfried's then wife Elizabeth? It made headlines and is an easy find on Google. She was pissed off at Paul because he was going on his show everyday and complaining about how bad Mark Gottfried was doing as Bama basketball head coach. Finebaum would get the Bammer's stirred up and they would call for Gottfried to be fired daily. Paul also did this to Mike Shula. Anyway, Finebaum was sitting courtside at a Bama basketball game and it was sold out at Coleman Coliseum. Then Elizabeth Gottfried seen Paul and confronted him in front of the entire crowd. She was screaming at Paul and said that Paul doesn't realize these coaches have families and said that the Gottfried's 5 kids hear this stuff about how their Dad is going to be fired. Then Finebaum went on his show the next day and stirred the pot even worse. I also remember Gene Chizik saying the same thing about Finebaum trying to always get coaches fired.