McCracken happy right where he is, thank you very much

No one could blame former Opelika coach Spence McCracken if he was getting a little antsy three months into his self-imposed “retirement” from the sidelines.

After all, there are probably a number of options open for an AHSAA Hall of Famer, the sixth-winningest high school coach in state history, to pursue. Including the director of football relations/high school liaison post at Auburn University vacated by his friend, Jimmy Perry earlier this week.

But McCracken said he’s satisfied with the hats he’s wearing at Opelika: P.E. teacher, weight training coach, and the most helpful part-time assistant in high school football history for Brian Blackmon. McCracken said he also plans to start working with “at risk” children in the Opelika community.

“I’m enjoying what I’m doing right now,“ he said. “Any way I can help make Opelika High School a better place for kids from Opelika, I’ll do.“

McCracken said he also plans to help out fellow coaching legend Steve Savarese and the AHSAA with a mentoring program for young coaches. I can’t imagine a much better person to learn from.

“In the words of Forrest Gump,“ McCracken said, “‘That’s about all I have to say about that.‘“

Auburn clinches 1st-round bye with Iron Bowl (of hoops) victory

TUSCALOOSA - We don’t have confirmation here, but we think Jeff Lebo is saying “book it” in that photo.

Auburn wrapped up a whole lot of things with its wacky, 77-73 victory here at a sold-out Coleman Coliseum.

The Tigers clinched second place in the SEC West, locked up a first-round bye in the SEC Tournament, completed their second Iron Bowl of basketball sweep in three years and gave themselves 20 wins for just the ninth time in program history.

Here’s our game story. We’ve got to hit the road. Times are tight. We couldn’t afford a hotel.

TUSCALOOSA – DeWayne Reed stood still in between center court and the 3-point line with 40 seconds to play Tuesday, dribbling the ball up and down as Alabama’s defenders watched.

Finally, when it was apparent Alabama wasn’t going to foul, Reed tossed the ball to freshman Frankie Sullivan in the corner. Time was running short and, even though the Tigers led by 2, someone had to make a shot.

“I saw that the clock was running down, said Sullivan, who had friends and family wiggling and cheering courtside with every move he made. “Reed just told me to drive it and I took it to the hole.”

Sullivan banked the shot in, silenced the 13,265 in attendance – aside from his personal cheering section – and sent the Tide away in Auburn’s 77-73 victory at Coleman Coliseum.

The victory clinched second place in the SEC West, locked up a first-round bye in the SEC Tournament, completed Auburn’s second Iron Bowl of basketball sweep in three years and gave the Tigers 20 wins for just the ninth time in program history.

“We had a lot riding on this game, obviously,” coach Jeff Lebo said. “You look back at Auburn and the tradition of winning seasons, there’s not that many.

“The way they did made it even more exciting.”

The Tigers (20-10, 9-6 SEC) overcame a rough first half, a 13-point second-half deficit and a blown 8-point lead with just five minutes remaining to walk away with their seventh win in the past eight.

That late Auburn lead, which was spurred on by shooting 64 percent in the second half and a number of missed Alabama free throws, dwindled back to 1 after Alabama’s Alonzo Gee knocked down a jumper with 1:23 to play.

Andrew Steele knocked down a 3 with 1:10 remaining to tie it, 73-73. But seemingly as quick as Steele brought the Tide back, Korvotney Barber answered with a tip-in 11 seconds later to give Auburn a lead it would not relinquish.

Then the final head-scratching moments ensued.

Following Barber’s putback, Senario Hillman missed a jumper with 45 seconds to play, as Barber came down with his 16th and biggest rebound of the night.

Alabama players, completely out of timeouts, looked to their coach for advice on what to do as Reed brought the ball over halfcourt with the clock melting away.

“I looked up and there was a nine- or 10- second difference,” Alabama coach Phillip Pearson said. “To be honest with you, they had been making their foul shots and they had some pretty good foul shooters on the floor. I thought we could get one quick stop and get them out of sorts and pick up an easy one at the other end.

“It didn’t work out that way.”

Auburn, who came into Tuesday’s game dead last in the SEC and 339th in the nation in free-throw percentage (59.9), was 8-for-12 from the foul line.

Reed shoots 64 percent from the line. Tay Waller, Auburn’s best free-throw shooter, was on the bench.

“I thought for sure they were going to foul,” Rasheem Barrett said. “I’m glad they didn’t.”

Barrett led the Tigers with 15 points while four others – Barber, Reed, Waller and Lucas Hargrove – notched double-figures.

Those five players did most of the damage in Auburn’s comeback, which succeeded a raucous ODK Trophy presentation and a nightmarish first half.

“We were terrible,” Lebo said.

From all angles and participants, Alabama went right at the hoop against Auburn’s undersized bigs and did major damage in the first half. When the Tide weren’t picking up easy points, they were getting the Tigers in foul trouble.

Barber picked up his second foul with 7:34 to play and backup Brendon Knox picked up his third less than a minute later. Lebo was forced to go to sparsely used Francis Aihe, who came into Tuesday with just two minutes of playing time in SEC play.

“He just gave us some good minutes out there,” Lebo said. “I didn’t really have a lot of options. He did some good things for us defensively and setting screens. That’s a hard position to put a kid like that in.”

Auburn’s position doesn’t get much better than now. The Tigers have an extra day of rest before taking on SEC West champion LSU on Saturday and have a guaranteed extra day off before their second-round SEC tournament game.

“It will be big for us,” Lebo said. “It’s been such an emotional 40 days, sometimes that takes a little bit out of us.”

(Photo credit: AP)

Auburn women rake in the awards

When you win a conference championship and sit atop the national polls for the vast majority of the season, it deserves some sort of recognition, right?

Sure, why not?

Your SEC Champion Auburn Tigers picked up a bulk of the individual awards announced today by the SEC office.

The two biggies? How about DeWanna Bonner, your SEC player of the year. And then there’s coach Nell Fortner, your SEC Coach of the Year.

Here’s the complete laundry list.

DeWanna Bonner
- Player of the Year
- SEC first-team (Unanimous selection)
- All-SEC Defensive Team

Whitney Boddie
- All-SEC First Team

Nell Fortner
- SEC Coach of the Year

Here’s the rest of the best.

First Team All-SEC

Whitney Boddie - Auburn
DeWanna Bonner - Auburn
Sha Brooks - Florida
Marshae Dotson - Florida
Allison Hightower - LSU
Bianca Thomas - OIe Miss
Alexis Rack - MSU
Christinia Wirth - Vanderbilt

Second Team All-SEC

Ceira Ricketts - Arkansas
Ashley Houts - Georgia
Angel Robinson - Georgia
Victoria Dunlap - UK
Eleia Roddy - UK
Angie Bjorklund - Tennessee
Shekinna Stricklen - Tennessee
Merideth Marsh - Vanderbilt
Jennifer Risper - Vanderbilt

All-Freshman Team

Ericka Russell - Alabama
Lyndsay Harris - Arkansas
Ceira Ricketts - Arkansas
Trumae Lucas - Florida
LaSondra Barrett - LSU
Lakeisha Sutton - South Carolina
Shekinna Stricklen - Tennessee
Glory Johnson - Tennessee

All-Defensive Team

DeWanna Bonner - AU
Allison Hightower - LSU
Chanel Mokango - MSU
Armelie Lumanu - MSU
Jennifer Risper - Vanderbilt

Coach of the Year

Nell Fortner - Auburn

Player of the Year

DeWanna Bonner - Auburn

Freshman of the Year

Ceira Ricketts - Arkansas
LaSondra Barrett - LSU

Defensive Player of the Year

Jennifer Risper - Vanderbilt

6th Woman of the Year

Charity Ford - Arkansas

Scholar-Athlete of the Year

Christina Wirth - Vanderbilt

(Photo credit: Todd Van Emst)

Big showdown in T-town tonight

These games of significant importance have been cropping up quite a bit lately.

That’s what happens when you start winning a few ballgames and turn a few heads in the SEC, we suppose.

The Auburn five make their shortest road trip of the conference season tonight when they take on Alabama at Coleman Coliseum. Tip time is set for 8 p.m. CST and you can watch it live on ESPN. We’ll be there, so we won’t be hearing the smooth voices of Brad Nessler, Jimmy Dykes and Jeanine Edwards.

Anyways, this game means a lot for your Auburn Tigers, winners of six of their last seven games. A victory over Alabama, winners of three straight, clinches second place in the SEC West, which in turn clinches a first-round bye in the conference tournament, which then clinches an extra day of idleness in Tampa for your Auburn beat writer. It’d give the Tigers 20 wins in a season for the first time since 2002-03 and would mark the Tigers’ fifth win over their in-state rival in the past six tries.

The only thing an Auburn win wouldn’t do is put the Tigers in better position for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Sorry folks, the only way this team is getting into the important post-season tournament is a complete run-through of the SEC Tournament. Auburn’s RPI (78) ain’t cuttin’ it and the SEC as a whole is doing about as well as the economy.

Here’s our advance from today’s newspaper. Here’s a look at things from the other side of the state. Alabama (16-12, 6-8) still has plenty to play for tonight. If the Tide wins out, and both Mississippi State and Auburn lose out, it would get the first-round bye thanks to its tiebreaker advantage over Auburn. Because Auburn and Alabama would have the same head-to-head and divisional records if that were to happen, Alabama would win the third tie-breaker, record against the first-place team in the division, because of its season-opening win over LSU.

We’ve been informed that tonight’s game is a sellout. That means 15,316 people, media, band members and mascots will take in the all-of-a-sudden bigtime SEC matchup. We’ve also been told that there will be some kind of trophy presentation at halftime. Something about ODK, maybe? We’re still trying to confirm the purpose of the presentation. Rumblings have led us to believe it has something to do with a football game that was played a few months ago.

(Photo credit: Todd Van Emst)

The children say he can dance and play ...

Snow is the great equalizer.
Seriously. My yard isn’t the nicest or best kept. Actually, it’s pretty ugly. But Sunday, it looked awesome, covered in a 3-inch sheet of snowman-rolling, snowball-packing, snow angel-angeling snow. Beautiful.

And the girls loved it, as you can see in the photo. But, we’ll talk more on the snow later.

It’s LBWC Time. BOYEEEEE!!!!

5) Saturday afternoon. “It’s over.“
That’s the message I got from the Busy Girl as I was out covering the Auburn-Florida State baseball game Saturday.
So, what’s over, you ask?
Well, Little Tornado (my 15-month-old daughter) figured out how to get her little body on our couch. It might not seem like a big deal to those of you who don’t have kids, but as all you madres and padres out there know, this is bad news.
Why? Well, because, we call my daughter Little Tornado for a reason. She knows no rules or limits and has no fear. My wife heard her laughing Saturday, walked into the living room and saw her on the couch. Standing. And jumping. It was something like this. (By the way, that’s not Little T.)
I see a hospital visit in our future.
It is indeed over.

4) Saturday evening. “Where’s his glove?“
Auburn beat No. 5 Florida State, 10-9. It was Auburn’s first win over the Seminoles since 2006. It was a good game. And probably the first college or pro game I’ve ever covered that didn’t have at least one double play. I know, whatever.
The best play of the game also turned out to be the biggest for Auburn. AU’s Joseph Sanders ripped a curveball into deep center field during the sixth inning with two runners on base. The ball, traveling very fast, and very low, was being tracked by FSU center fielder Tyler Holt. Holt caught up to the ball at the warning track, leaped, caught it, then hit the fence.
Out!
Wait. Home run.
See, Holt had the ball, at least that’s what he told the FSU radio guy after Saturday’s game, but when he hit the wall, the ball went over the fence along with his glove. But no one knew that right away. With center field 385 feet away from home plate, I thought that Holt came down with the ball, but was injured on the play, so he couldn’t throw it back in.
Not the case. And I think Holt’s pride was hurt more than his body on the play, which was a great effort. An A+ hustle play all the way.
Play had to be stopped for about five minutes for someone to retrieve Holt’s glove.
The three-run homer put AU up 10-8, and gave the Tigers the win as pitcher Austin Hubbard came in to close the door on the Noles.
Watching Holt’s play reminded me of “The Natural” when Bartholomew “Bump” Bailey ran through the wall. Remember that?
It also reminded me of a play I saw live when I was a senior in college. I was doing play-by-play for my college’s baseball team—Wingate University. Anyway, we were at Wake Forest for a game, and our left fielder, Mark Feimster, was chasing a home run ball and hit the wooden wall in left, breaking through the base of it with his knee. It was incredible that Mark didn’t break his leg.
But that, too, was a hustle play. Even though it was a home run, you still got to give it up for a guy who risks his body to try and stop it.
Everyone, but this guy.

3) Saturday night. Big win.
The Auburn basketball team knocked off Mississippi State for the second time in two weeks. This time, it was in Starkville. A big win for Jeff Lebo and his Tigers.
Now, Auburn’s in sole possession of second place in the SEC West. All the Tigers have to do is win one more game and they’ve got second locked up, and will have a first-round bye in the SEC Tournament next weekend.
My how things change. Remember a couple weeks ago when we were questioning Lebo’s future? Well, I think that’s a moot point. Really. He’s done everything he’s needed to do to keep his job at Auburn. The Tigers are almost all but guaranteed a spot in the NIT.
To make the NCAA Tournament, Auburn will have to win its final two regular-season games, then make it all the way to the SEC championship game, at the very least. Even then they’re still a long shot, unless they win the whole thing.
Don’t see that happening. But, yet, I didn’t see this happening, either.

2) Sunday afternoon. “Wow.“
Nell Fortner kept saying that. With reporters walking away after an interview, the Auburn women’s head coach stood in the tunnel at Beard-Eaves, rocking a net around her neck, and kept repeating that three-letter word.
Wow’s right. The Auburn women are a special group who just won their first SEC regular-season title in 20 years. They’re a No. 1 seed in this week’s SEC tourney, and could be an overall No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
It’s a pretty big story, especially for this year’s team which is led by four seniors who are its heart and soul.
I expect big things from this team this week in Little Rock and then in the NCAA tourney. They’re experienced, talented and focused. It’ll be fun watching them the rest of the month.
But it won’t be as funny as this. (You laughed. You know you did.)

1) Sunday. “Daddy, that snowman is bald like you.“
Thanks, Busy Baby. It sure is.
As you can tell from the above picture, we had a blast playing in the snow Sunday. We built five snowmen ... er, people. One daddy—which was, of course, bald—one mommy, one Busy Baby, one Little Tornado and one Really Lazy Dog.
Since we don’t know when we’ll see snow again, the Lazy Family enjoyed it, especially the BB. She didn’t come inside until her hands, feet, nose, cheeks and lips were numb.
When she woke up Monday morning, she was sad the snow was melting away. By mid-afternoon, it was all gone. All of it, except for the bald guy in the front yard. Hopefully, he’ll stick around for a while, I need some help landscaping my yard.