Much More Than Just a Basketball Win

We started slow and finished fast yesterday and escaped Starkville with a 76-68 victory over Mississippi State. You probably saw the main points from this win — nation’s longest winning streak, only undefeated team in the SEC, Bryce Brown’s 23 points — but this unassuming road trip across the state line was so much more.

First of all, Auburn sent buses full of fans over to the Hump, and they were loud. They neutralized a bit of the (tepid) home-court advantage that Mississippi State had, and answered the bell when the Bulldog fans tried to make waves.

Seriously, beat us at something and then talk.

Then there were the awful reverse jinxes from Mississippi State fans.

I’m pretty sure that 3:16 PM is CST, so we were at halftime, and he was already looking past the second half. Silly mortal. In three of Auburn’s four SEC wins, the Tigers have come back from a double-digit deficit at some point and won. We trailed against Tennessee and won by ten, we trailed against Ole Miss and won by 15, and we trailed yesterday and won by eight. Auburn’s starting to become that horror movie monster that isn’t dead until the studio decides to stop making sequels.

Also, the fans that traveled didn’t just stay for the game, but for the postgame radio interview as well.

And the team isn’t backing down from keeping an underdog role, because at this point, that 4-14 prediction is technically still a possibility.

It would be an epic collapse if Auburn only won a couple more games this season, and right now there are certain prognosticators that are pubbing the Tigers as favorites to win the SEC regular season title.

What?? As any long-suffering Auburn fan should know, this would be completely unprecedented. I mean unbelievable. If Auburn won the SEC regular season title, Bruce Pearl should win every single Coach of the Year award that’s out there.

However, we can’t let this winning streak end just yet. Please, God, not just yet. We’ve got Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Wednesday, and they’ll be fired up. But they’ll be a little short-handed.

Hall will be out for a while with this injury, which bodes well for us.

War Eagle! Keep it rolling, boys!