Coffee and Magnolia: 10 March 2015

BASKETBALL

Antoine Mason is back with the basketball team and practicing for Wednesday night's SEC Tournament game against Mississippi State. This is Mason's first game back since the death of his father, Anthony. I am very glad Mason gets to put on the Auburn uniform one more time and play with his teammates. He deserves at least one more game with them, and hopefully he'll get more than one.

As for the SEC Tournament itself, we'll have a preview up a bit later today complete with a bracket. If anyone's interested in doing a fun NCAA Tournament bracket challenge (even though Auburn won't make the dance without a miracle on the level of parting the Red Sea), we may do one of those here at C&M.

BASEBALL

The Tigers take on Samford tonight in a mid-week game before facing undefeated Texas A&M in College Station this weekend. Auburn has looked pretty good, so far. Winning the series against the Aggies would cause expectations to skyrocket.

FOOTBALL

IT'S HERE! SPRING PRACTICE BEGINS TODAY! We wrote a primer on the spring here at C&M. And I'm attempting to shamelessly steal an old Georgia Southern nickname and call Auburn's offense the Auburn Power Company.

AL.com continues to preview Auburn's position units and covered the linebackers and defensive backs, yesterday. They also ask three "burning questions" going into the spring and ponder if JUCO transfer Jovon Robinson could emerge as a star. I'll answer that last question: yes. Yes, he can.

The Ledger-Enquirer sees AL.com's three burning questions and raises them two more to ask five questions going into the Spring.

Will Muschamp is fine with expectations and what people may want to believe about how his defense will perform. I think he's confident in their abilities and in his to coach them.

In non-Auburn related news, some people attacked Mississippi State's QB Dak Prescott and a few other MSU players in Panama City last night and then went to bragging about it on Twitter. They appear to be TSU students and possibly players by the Twitter bio. That would be Tennessee State in this case, since there was a reference to the team being blue. For Whom the Cowbell Tolls has updates and info on the whole situation. Hopefully those idiots get arrested quick, fast, and in a hurry. For taking the cheap shots in the first place, but then for bragging about it on Twitter. That has GOT to be filed under "dumbest criminals ever."