Auburn 66, Texas Pan-American 63

Here’s a sneak peek at tomorrow’s Auburn men’s basketball game story. This one was pretty ugly.

The same Auburn team that beat two SEC teams by a combined 36 points, downed an ACC team on the road and hung in a game against the No. 10 team in the country nearly let Texas Pan-American—a Division I independent—escape Beard-Eaves-Coliseum with a win Tuesday night.

The major talent gap and an overwhelming height advantage – a rare instance at any point of the year for Auburn – translated into an ugly 66-63 victory before a listed 3,283 fans – 8,784 less than the turnout for Sunday’s women’s basketball game against Tennessee.

“We’re just happy we survived,” coach Jeff Lebo said. “That was not pretty by any stretch.”

Tuesday’s game mimicked the multiple struggles Auburn had with inferior competition throughout its non-conference schedule. Unlike their convincing wins against Alabama and Arkansas, or their tough battles against Florida and Kentucky, the Tigers looked more like the team that lost to Mercer and battled to the end with Alabama State on its home court.

Texas Pan-American came into Tuesday having lost five of its past six and without its leading scorer and rebounder, Emmanuel Jones. Only two of the Broncs five wins this season have come against Division I opponents.

“I feel like it’s a big letdown,” senior Rasheem Barrett said. “I can’t let my teammates be comfortable with just a win.”

A game between the 335th and 339th worst foul shooting teams in the nation ultimately came down free throws.

Auburn, four spots down from the Broncs in free-throw ineptitude, made just enough not to lose.

Once Texas-Pan American began to foul on purpose with 24 seconds to play, Auburn made four of its final six attempts.

After an uncontested P.J. Turner layup with 7.2 seconds remaining cut the lead to 65-63, Quantez Robertson clanked his first attempt to keep it at a one-possession game.

For the game, Auburn made just 15 of its 27 free-throw attempts.

“We’ve got the same guys missing free throws in crucial times,” Lebo said. “Fifty-five percent is just terrible. Terrible. Terrible is what it is.”

Auburn’s defense held ground at the most crucial point of the game. Texas Pan-American’s Nick Weiermiller was well behind the 3-point arc and had multiple hands to shoot over, as his attempted game-tying shot clanked off the back rim.

Read more in tomorrow’s OA-News.

(Photo credit: Cliff Williams)

At Auburn, you can never have too many quarterbacks

Auburn received an expected, but still big-time commitment today when dual-threat quarterback Tyrik Rollison pledged his allegiance to coach Gene Chizik and the Tigers.

Our friends at the trifecta of Auburn recruiting sites have been on top of this all day. AuburnSports.com, AUtigers.com and AuburnUndercover.com, we salute you.

This may arguably go down as the biggest commit of Chizik’s first go-around on the Auburn ‘cruitin’ trail. Rollison is a four-star guy, according to Rivals. Those same people behind the scenes have rated him the No. 2 dual-threat quarterback, the No. 9 recruit from Texas and the 60th-best overall recruit in the nation. The bigwigs at Scout say he’s the 11th best quarterback in the nation.

Rollison threw for 4,729 yards and 51 touchdowns during his senior season. He added 1,094 yards on the ground with 14 more touchdowns. His team at Sulphur Springs, Texas was kind of a big deal, as it won the Class 4A Division II state title. He has some academic issues, but we’re sure Auburn is all over that.

Rollison is the Tigers’ 22nd commit and the second quarterback of the bunch. Alabama Mr. Football, Leroy’s Clint Moseley, is the other.

No, the Tigers did not graduate a single quarterback this year and it appears all will be back in the fold for 2009. If we’re counting walk-on Brent Poole, Auburn will have seven quarterbacks in attendance come August. Kodi Burns is the odds-on favorite, but his job is by no means safe. It’s also safe to say Rollison or Moseley, or both, will have to redshirt.

(Photo credit: That’s not Tyrik Rollison. That’s simply a quarterback.)

Coaches say Auburn is No. 4, Fortner says it doesn’t matter

The coaches of women’s college basketball had the same reaction today as the beat hacks of the Associated Press did yesterday.

Auburn sure is good, but it appears they need to see more.

The Tigers jumped from from No. 5 to No. 4 in the latest installment of the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll. In front of them lie undefeated and seemingly untouchable UConn, Oklahoma (16-2) at No. 2 and Baylor (17-1) at the three-spot.

“I had no reaction at all. It didn’t matter to me and that’s the honest to God’s truth,“ coach Nell Fortner said. “What matters is us playing the next game and doing all we can to win it.“

Auburn, by the way, is just one of two undefeated teams left in the nation. UConn, as mentioned earlier, is the other. If you tuned in to ESPN today, you may be under the suspicion that the women’s college basketball season is over because the Huskies are that good.

“We aren’t getting too much attention,“ forward Trevesha Jackson said. “Yesterday I was watching TV and they were saying UConn should be No. 1 and No. 2. I’m glad we’re the underdogs. No one is really talking about us much right now.“

Here’s the rest of the ESPN/USA Today top 10.

1. Connecticut (20-0)
2. Oklahoma (16-2)
3. Baylor (17-1)
4. Auburn (20-0)
5. California (16-2)
6. Duke (17-1)
7. Texas A&M (15-3)
8. Stanford (15-4)
9. Maryland (16-3)
10. North Carolina (17-3)

(Photo credit: Todd Van Emst)

Georgia vs. Alabama Indoor Football Classic lineups released

The Columbus Lions have released the rosters for the inaugural Georgia/Alabama Indoor Classic, to be played at the Columbus Civic Center at 4 p.m. on Feb. 22. A link to the release put out by the Lions can be found here.

Russell County’s Rico White will coach the Alabama squad, and will be in charge of four of his Warriors: QB JaCorey Battle, K James Sparks, WR/DB C.J. Harris and FB/LB Darius Streeter.

Beauregard WR/DB Derrick Porter, who committed to play at Division II Lane College last week, leads a group of five Hornets on the squad. Porter will be joined by teammates OL/LB Seneric McCurdy, FB/LB Dewinston Maniefield, OL/DL Dre Core and OL/DL Tim Dykes.

Three Opelika Bulldogs are on the 20-man roster: recent Georgia Southern commit FB/LB Josh Rowe, OL/DL Josh Lewis and OL/DL Jeremy Edwards.

Lanett has five players on the squad (WR/DB Lander Chappell, FB/LB Antonio Harper, FB/DL Jared Washington, OL/DL Gaston Gibson and OL/DL Richard Trammell), while Central contributes three (WR/DB Yancey Edwards, OL/DL Dexton Cochran and OL/DL Marlin Sims).

And so it begins…

Hello Internet!

I’m David Morrison and I’m your new Opelika-Auburn News prep sports writer. There will be a story about me on the front of tomorrow’s sports section, but in case you don’t read it, I thought I’d introduce myself cybernetically…if that’s a word…even if it’s not.

I graduated from reigning Alamo Bowl runner-up Northwestern in June and I served a five-month internship at the Birmingham News from August through the beginning of January. I have also been an intern at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice. But neither of those sports scenes could measure up to what I’ve seen in my months in Alabama. Especially on the preps side.

That’s why I’m really excited to start this job. I got to see in Birmingham just how important high school sports are to not only the athletes, but the whole community. I know I probably won’t get a Pulitzer for the work I do here, but I still think it’s a kind of noble calling to give some exposure to what these student-athletes are doing.

Give me a sec…I’ve got to get off this high horse…

OK, some background. I was born in Orlando and spent my first 18 years there. Well, I did spend one year in a suburb of Houston called Kingwood. I collected about 18.5 gajillion sports cards as a kid and they’re all in my mom’s attic somewhere, I think. As a byproduct of all these cards, I have a categorical knowledge of the scrubs of the 1990s in the big three professional sports. The guys that made up the end of the bench as well as filling out the 700s and 800s of the Topps complete team sets. Just ask me about Greg Kite, Yatil Green or Mike Mordecai someday.

I have been a sports junkie all of my life, and one of my earliest memories is watching the Reds beat the A’s in the 1990 World Series. I was 4. My favorite sports moment of all time is Josh Beckett fielding a dribbler to the mound and tagging out Jorge Posada for the final out of the 2003 World Series. Yeah, my baseball team won two championships in its first 11 years of existence. Take that, Gribble.

I’m a man who unashamedly judges others by the choices they make in books, television, music and movies, so I will be transparent in my tastes. The last album I bought was “Get Guilty” by A.C. Newman. The last show I went to was The National, Modest Mouse and R.E.M. at the United Center in June. The last movie I saw was Slumdog Millionaire (so, so good). My favorite TV show was (sniffle) Arrested Development. I am currently reading “The Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen.

OK, time to wrap up this novel. I’ll do it by saying that I want to hear from my readers as much as possible. I want to hear from you through comments on my blog, my work phone (737-2568) or my E-mail inbox ( ). If you like something I’m doing, let me know. If you don’t like something I’m doing, let me know. If you think I should be covering something, let me know. If you see something at your local high school that would make for an interesting story, let me know. I want to do everything I can to be as thorough in covering your high schools as I can be. And I want to get up to speed as soon as possible.

So if you see me at a game looking a little lost, it’s probably because I am. At least for the first few weeks. Just point me in the right direction.