The Auburn men's basketball started conference play strong by winning at home against LSU and narrowly edging South Carolina in Columbia.
That's where the good news began and ended so far this season.
Since the victory at South Carolina, Tony Barbee's team has dropped two heartbreakers and suffered two more relative blowouts to kill all momentum the team had after winning their first two SEC games.
All of this came after a 6-7 out-of-conference record.
In short, Auburn basketball is going through rough times right now, and while there are certainly some glaring disappointments, there are a few reasons to have cautious optimism for the remainder of the season, but only a few.
The game Auburn played against Kentucky was all but embarassing.
If the Tigers had not at least hung close for one half in front of a sellout home crowd it would have turned the game from disappointment to embarassment.
The loss at Vanderbilt was not as bad as the Kentucky defeat, but it still stung because that game marked Auburn's third loss in a row.
While Auburn largely collapsed in the second half against the Wildcats and Commodores, the Tigers hung in there quite well against Arkansas and No. 16 Ole Miss.
The team was in the thick of both of those games until the end.
At Arkansas, Auburn took the Razorbacks to double overtime where they eventually lost by eight points. They still took an in-conference team to two periods beyond regulation on the road.
The Ole Miss game last Saturday was similar except at the end of the second half Auburn had a golden opportunity to win the game in the last seconds until Chris Denson's drive to the basket was stuffed and Ole Miss took hold of the basketball.
It should be noted that Denson had the hot hand in the game, scoring 18 points, but just came up short at the end.
Auburn sent Ole Miss player Marshall Johnson to the line where he put the Tigers away with only seconds remaining.
That's enough about the past though. It's over, and while it leaves a bad taste in any Tiger fan's mouth, Auburn is forced to look only to the future.
There are still 12 games to be played in the regular season; that's more than enough time for any team to change its season for the better, especially a team like Auburn that has proven it can at least hang with good teams.
The team will have hang in there with good teams and more in the coming weeks as the future holds games against No. 17 Missouri, Kentucky, No. 4 Florida and No. 16 Ole Miss in February.
I'm not even going to talk about the NCAA Tournament right now because as it stands Auburn may not even make the NIT Championship.
But if Barbee can get the players to feed on some good play and earn quality wins down the stretch, nothing is out of the realm of possibility.
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