Will Auburn make the NCAA tournament? Latest seed projections entering March Madness originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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The Auburn Tigers enter the SEC Tournament as a consensus bubble team for the NCAA Tournament. Their postseason hopes hanging in the balance after a bad finish to the regular season.
Auburn closed the regular season at 16-14 overall and 7-10 in SEC play, a stretch that included seven losses in their last nine games. The Tigers’ late slide has pushed them from comfortable tournament positioning just a few weeks ago into one of the most interesting spots on the selection board.
Auburn head coach Steven Pearl’s team showed flashes of resilience down the stretch, including a 14-point victory over LSU on senior night, but inconsistency has defined Auburn’s final month. That was evident in the Tigers’ final regular season matchup against Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where Auburn fell 96-84 on Saturday night.
Despite the loss, Auburn remains barely inside the projected NCAA Tournament field, according to several bracket projections.
ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi lists the Tigers as his final team in the 68-team field, a razor-thin margin shows how fragile Auburn’s standing has become. The Tigers are currently listed as a No. 11 seed with a play-in game against VCU.
“Auburn is gonna wake up in our field, even with a loss,” Lunardi said via AL.com. “We still need 68 teams and right now, on the at-large board, they’re number 37.”
Thirty-seven at-large bids are available for the tournament field.
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Other projections are less optimistic. CBS Sports currently lists Auburn as the first team out, alongside New Mexico, Seton Hall and Indiana.
The Tigers now turn their attention to the SEC Tournament, where they are scheduled to open Wednesday against Mississippi State. A strong showing in Nashville may be the only way Auburn can remove the uncertainty surrounding its NCAA Tournament fate.
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