LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Somebody call security. It appears David Housel snuck in and redecorated the lobby here at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
Orange and blue streamers greet you as you walk through the doors and a printed-out Auburn logo hangs in the center, right next to the latte stand. All of the workers are adorned in some sort of Auburn gear.
That’s all standard protocol, coach Nell Fortner said in her meeting with reporters this evening. But this has been her best experience yet.
We think the No. 1 seed and 27-2 record has just a bit to do with that.
Though he couldn’t exactly confirm it, Auburn media relations extraordinaire Matt Crouch said Auburn might just be the only team in the tournament to have a hotel to itself. In the past, the team has been slumming with the likes of the Floridas, South Carolinas and Vanderbilts of the world.
Yuck, right?
Here’s Fortner speaking with the few, brave beat hacks who crossed multiple borders to cover this here tournament. Enjoy.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—Get used to that sexy dateline. We’re here for the long haul.
Well, until the Auburn women’s basketball team wins the SEC Tournament…or loses. Either way, we’ll be here for more SEC women’s basketball coverage than you can shake a stick at, or keep up with—whichever cliche you prefer.
That photo up there is the view from our fourth-floor hotel room at the Residence Inn. Don’t expect much more commentary about our dwellings for the weekend. We won’t be here much.
Anyways, we’re about an hour away from speaking with coach Nell Fortner at her digs, the downtown Crowne Plaza. We expect it to be a bit fancier.
We’ll be probing Fortner about Auburn’s game tomorrow, which will be against No. 9-seed Ole Miss. The Rebels earned their chance against the No. 1 seed with a 65-60 victory over No. 8 Arkansas. As they did with most of the teams they faced this season, the Tigers beat Ole Miss, 72-65, on Feb. 5. It got a bit hairy, though, as Ole Miss’ Bianca Thomas caught fire in the second half on her way to 28 points and made it tight down the stretch.
In the second game of the day, No. 7 Georgia is just about done wrapping up a route of No. 10 Kentucky. That means the Bulldogs will take on No. 2 Vanderbilt tomorrow.
We’ll continue the updates through the rest of the night, as we take in the Alabama-Tennessee game and the Mississippi State-South Carolina nightcap.
Or one of my best traits as a sportswriter, depending on your outlook.
My family, which I’m pretty sure makes up more than half of my readership anyway, already knows about this. But for the other four of you, here it is: I’m a stats junkie.
Ever since I was kid, I couldn’t get enough numbers. And I’m even worse when it comes to sports numbers.
So if you see me at a sporting eventy feverishly marking up my notebook, it’s not because I’m doodling or penning the next great American novel (though that is coming…one of these days…). I’m just keeping ridiculously detailed stats. That’s putting it nicely. Birmingham News preps malcontent and continual David Morrison tormentor Paul Beaudry had a harsher way of putting it at the Super 48 in Birmingham last week. It had to do with being OCD.
David Morrison co-worker and frequent Florida Marlin disparager Andrew Gribble likened me to this guy.
Want to see what I’m talking about? Well, here’s today’s softball game between Opelika and Prattville:
Prattville 6, Opelika 3 Prattville Opelika
ab r h bi ab r h bi
Barrett rf 4 2 1 0 Gillock cf 4 0 0 0
Pullin cf 3 0 1 0 Stephens ss 3 1 1 0
Kilpatrick c 3 1 1 2 O’Neal c 3 1 1 0
Young pr 0 0 0 0 White 1b 3 1 2 1
Smitherman 1b 3 0 1 1 Crain 3b 3 0 0 0
Joiner lf 4 0 0 0 Lindsey p-dp 3 0 0 0
Counsell p 3 0 0 0 Gortney dp-p 2 0 0 0
Carlson 3b 2 1 0 0 Chandler lf 3 0 1 0
Clark ss 2 1 1 0 Langford 2b 3 0 1 0
Ingram 2b 3 1 2 0 Totals 27 6 7 3 Totals 27 3 6 1
Yeah, I know the formatting’s migraine-inducing, but you get the picture.
I’m not going to spread my mania to the precious column inches of our newspaper, but I figure it doesn’t hurt to use a little bandwidth for my confession. If you like this sort of thing, let me know and I can make box scores a regular thing on my blog.
And if you see me at sporting events in my own little world of pitch counting and “F-5"ing, please come over and try to converse with me. I think some human contact would do me good.
(P.S. You should have never shown me how to make box scores on the computer, Mike. You’re an enabler.)
ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi had a simple message today for Auburn fans optimistic about the Tigers’ chances for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Stop it.
Auburn, winners of seven of its last eight and currently in the midst of its best season since 2002-03, will have to sweep through next week’s SEC Tournament in Tampa if it plans on going to a postseason tournament not called the NIT.
“I’m not looking seriously at Auburn,“ Lunardi said today in a teleconference with beat hacks across the country.
First, let’s address why Lunardi is relevant.
He invented this ESPN-dubbed science known as “bracketology.“ He’s been predicting the NCAA men’s tournament field since 1997—ESPN.com’s inception. Since then, he has missed on just 10 teams. TEN! Last year, he was a perfect 65-for-65.
So even though Auburn, which clinched second place in the SEC West yesterday with a big 77-73 win at Alabama, would be 10-6 in the SEC with a win Saturday over No. 12 LSU, Lunardi has no reason to believe the Tigers will be team No. 11 on his list of misfires.
“I don’t think anybody who has watched the bulk of the SEC this year, particularly the West, could really make a quantitative or a qualitative argument for that,“ Lunardi said.
We’re still double- and triple-checking our facts, but we’re fairly certain that no 10-6 SEC team has been left out of the Big Dance.
Sorry, Lunardi said. The times, they are a changin’.
“I think that’s one of those historic things that doesn’t matter this year because every year is its own entity,“ Lunardi said. “I don’t think 10-6 means anything this year in the SEC, particularly in the West ... That string is likely to be broken.“
But what about Auburn’s impressive run in this final third of the season? Won’t that have an impact on the selection committee, which just so happens to be headed by SEC commissioner Mike Slive?
Sorry again, Lunardi said. The committee won’t be naive enough to look past the fact that, of Auburn’s last seven wins, only one (Tennessee) came against a lock for the NCAA Tournament.
“I think it’s a pretty arbitrary consideration,“ Lunardi said. “They’re smart enough to know that I could be 6-6 playing all ranked teams and you could be 10-2 playing the bottom of your league because that’s the way your schedule fell.“
Lunardi’s not alone in his lack of affection for your Auburn Tigers.
Jerry Palm, another one of these NCAA bracket gurus who rarely misses, posted a pretty annoyed-sounding message today on his Web site, CollegeRPI.com.
I can’t answer my phone or check my e-mail without getting a question about Auburn, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. The Tigers are a slightly above average team in the weaker division of a below average major conference. They have a one-point win at home over Tennessee, and that’s it. Yes, the Tigers have won seven of eight, but other than Tennessee, the wins have come over the other league punching bags. There’s nothing to see here, folks. Move along, please.
On that Web site, Palm has Auburn at 72 in the RPI. That’s not very good and it certainly doesn’t merit an invitation to The Dance, let alone the huge pre-party at Club Bubbles.
Consider this: Maryland (18-11, 7-8 ACC), as of this afternoon, is in Lunardi’s second group of the “Final Four out.“ The Terps’ RPI is 52 and their strength of schedule ranks 26th. They’ve got victories over No. 2 North Carolina, No. 8 Michigan State and a definite bubble team, Michigan. Yes, Maryland has a sub-.500 record in its conference, but that conference is the ACC, which will likely get seven teams into the tournament.
The SEC, meanwhile, will be lucky to get four. Auburn’s strength of schedule currently ranks 82nd and it has just one win over a top 50 RPI team (Tennessee, 21). The Tigers would have two if they beat LSU (25) on Saturday.
Remember when we talked about convergence here at the OA-News blogosphere?
Well, it wasn’t just a whole bunch of cow patty.
Ace high school reporter David Morrison got former Opelika head football coach Spence McCracken on the horn today. The purpose of the call? To find out if the legendary coach, and Auburn graduate, would be interested in the now-vacant director of football operations gig at Auburn.
Here’s what he had to say. We think this means “no.“
“I’m enjoying what I’m doing right now. Any way I can help make Opelika High School a better place for kids from Opelika, I’ll do.
“In the words of Forrest Gump, That’s about all I have to say about that.“
Here’s the rest of David’s take on the situation. Here, you’ll also find out what McCracken’s been up to/plans to be working on in the near future. It’s good stuff.
It was a good thing David made the call today because if we did, McCracken and the blog would likely still be talking about our favorite baseball team until one of our phones’ batteries died. McCracken is a gigantic Cleveland Indians fan and the blog, as some of you may or may not remember, grew up a few stones’ throws from Lake Erie. He’s become pretty close with pitchers Jensen Lewis and Jeremy Sowers, both former players at Vanderbilt, over the years and he’ll be making a trip to the finest city in Northeast Ohio some time this summer.
Let’s hope David didn’t let McCracken know who his favorite team is. He’d likely never talk to him again. That’d be a shame.
