I’m not sure how many of you expected to be reading this at any point before or during the season, but the Florida Gators are going to be taking on the Auburn Tigers on Sunday, March 17th for an opportunity to hang a banner as SEC Tournament Champion.
This was a crazy year in the SEC Tournament with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd seeds all falling in the quarterfinals, setting things up for a final between Auburn, the 4th seed, and Florida, the 6th seed, that probably wasn’t expected by too many people.
Auburn entered the SEC Tournament on a three-game winning streak and still took their game to another level in Nashville. Their opening game was against South Carolina, a trendy pick to go on a run in this tournament, but their dreams were quickly shattered. The Tigers completely blitzed the Gamecocks from the opening tip, coming away with a 86-55 blowout win. They advanced to the next round where they took on Mississippi State and while it was a competitive game, the Tigers ended up winning 73-66 in a game where their defense led the way.
Throughout the season there has been a lot of talk about just how good the Auburn Tigers are. They went through non-conference play without any major wins, and in the SEC they largely beat the teams they were supposed to but struggled to knock off teams at the top of the league. However–metrics absolutely love the Tigers. Entering Saturday’s game they were 4th in KenPom and 5th in the NET Rankings, painting a very different picture than their resume. Because of this confusion they are currently projected as a four or five-seed in the NCAA Tournament, though no one is quite sure what the Selection Committee is going to do with them due to the discrepancy. Needless to say there isn’t a ton of meat on the bone of that resume and they’d love to take down the Gators on a neutral site in order to get a huge boost that could see them improve a seed line.
Right now the Gators are just behind the Tigers and are projected to be a six-seed in order to top bracketologists, and a win over Auburn could see them get in the mix for the five-line. It’s also possible that with some of the possible games remaining the Gators could end up there anyways–but a win would make that look like much more of a possibility.
Florida will have the advantage of having taken down Auburn in the meeting earlier in the season. In fairness, this was a game that was set up in Florida’s advantage. They were given a “bye” week before this one giving them a full week to prepare, and the game was in Gainesville in front of a hungry crowd. If you had to boil this game down to one takeaway, it was that Florida’s guards were much better than Auburn’s. Zyon Pullin (19 points, 3 assists) and Walter Clayton (20 points, 1 assist) were in the midst of a stretch of huge games that saw them pouring in points against just about everybody, while the Tigers’ backcourt finished with a combined 16 points, 2 assists, and 6 turnovers. KD Johnson, who is known for his boom or bust style of play, was unable to get much going and instead struggled with turnovers, while sophomore Tre Donaldson couldn’t find his way into the paint and settled for perimeter jumpers he doesn’t always love to take. The strength of the Auburn roster is it’s talented frontcourt of Johni Broome and Jaylin Williams with Dylan Cardwell coming off the bench, and since Florida also has a deep frontcourt that group played itself to somewhat of a draw so it was the far superior Gator guards that were the difference.
So far in the SEC Tournament the Tigers have done an excellent job at getting contributions up and down the lineup. They have had balanced scoring throughout their 8-man rotation with no one playing taking a bulk of the offensive reps making them much more difficult to guard. They are playing a little bit slower than they did earlier in the season and are running a lot more sets, and instead of being able to hone in on Broome in the post or Johnson in transition you have to be ready for more complex screening actions where multiple players can pop out of the action and be in a position to score.
The Tigers have also taken their defense to another level, cranking up the perimeter pressure and funnelling drivers into their shot blocking frontcourt. Florida’s offense has been humming recently, particularly with their best shooting game of the season against Texas A&M, and it will be tested against an Auburn team who is defending at a high level. Mississippi State committed 14 turnovers as they struggled with the Tigers’ pressure and while it’s a quick turnaround the Gators will have to be ready for the hard hedges and traps that will face them.
Head coach Bruce Pearl also isn’t scared of throwing out zones, at least historically, though he hasn’t done a lot of it this year. If there was one word to describe Pearl’s coaching strategy it would be “fearless,” so even though Auburn hasn’t played a lot of zone, it could very well come out in a big moment of a championship game. The Tigers have done a lot of full-court pressing this year, so that’s another wrinkle the Gators will have to be prepared for.
In a lot of ways this feels like found money for the Gators. Going into the season they weren’t expected to compete for an SEC Tournament title, nor were they expected to going into this weekend. There would be no shame at all in losing, and it’s not like dropping a game like this would hurt their NCAA Tournament resume at all. However, there is everything to gain. Banners hang forever, and a win could see the Gators bump up a valuable seed line on the Selection Show that will go live relatively soon after the SEC Tournament is decided. Florida should be able to play loose and confident basketball, which could be just the recipe they need to come away victorious.
Florida and Auburn will tip off for the SEC Tournament Championship at 1 PM ET on March 17th. For the first time this weekend this game should tip off at the announced time because there are no prior games. It will be televised on ESPN.