Coffee and Magnolia: 17 February 2015

BASKETBALL

It's round 2 of 2 tonight, as the Tigers will take on the Tide in Auburn Arena. Last I saw there was a limited number of standing room only seats still available before this one is officially ruled a sell out. Hopefully those who live out of town will still be able to make it down for the game with the bad weather. Bruce Pearl is calling this one a "must win" for the Tigers.

The ladies will return to action on Thursday evening at home against Ole Miss.

More to come on these a little later today in Bobby Barkley's preview of tonight's game and Everett will have a "Home on the Plains" to detail everything else going on in town this week and weekend.

Phillip Marshall wrote about what it will take for men's and women's basketball (and baseball and football) to find their way back to the top: signing the top talent in Alabama.

BASEBALL

If you live in the Mobile area and want to see the Tigers play, they'll be at South Alabama tonight. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30pm.

SPORTS

The gymnastics team has moved up in the rankings over the past few weeks even as they've lost. The reason? Those losses have been very close to two teams ranked very high in the nation. They are now 8th in the nation, up from 9th the previous week after falling to LSU by only a half a tenth of a point Friday night.

The SEC Championships begin today in Swimming and Diving, and they're taking place right here on the Plains. It will run through Saturday and all seats have been sold out. I believe there are some standing room only available, though.

FOOTBALL

The main news on the football front is how well Auburn's players participating in this week's NFL combine will do. AL.com profiles Cameron Artis-Payne, Sammie Coates, Reese Dismukes, and spoke about whether or not Nick Marshall should throw as a QB.

You know that whole budget deficit Auburn ran last year? Chadd Scott says it's a good thing for Auburn's fans. I agree with him. It's not like Auburn routinely runs deficits. Auburn has also had a lot of money being spent on coaches who aren't coaching for us, anymore. Those will eventually come off the books. Oh, and I'm pretty sure that deficit didn't count in the SEC Network money coming in. It DID account for the amount of money going OUT in order to get all of Auburn Athletics ready to broadcast and support everything that goes behind the SEC Network. If Auburn runs this type of deficit again for a few years, then we'll need to be worried. For now, it's just the cost of doing business.