The Auburn men's basketball team won four of their six games over the break, including a victory over Florida State.
The team has begun to come into their own after beginning the season with two wins and five losses. The Tigers have since improved to 6-7.
One of Auburn's losses came against 12th-ranked Illinois, but it was a close game, with the final reading 81-79 in favor of the Fighting Illini.
Though Auburn has begun to warm up in recent weeks, the team has lost key players in Chris Denson and Jordan Price to injury. Both suffered stress fractures that take four to six weeks to recover from.
The team is familiar to playing without Denson, who has only played in five games this season.
"We played without Chris earlier in the year," said head coach Tony Barbee. "It's not like we haven't done it before this year, so guys were ready to fill into those roles."
Even with the injuries, the Tigers were able to defeat last year's ACC champion Florida State 78-72, due in no small part to senior Frankie Sullivan, who was named SEC Player of the Week by CollegeSportsMadness.com.
Sullivan is second in the SEC in scoring, averaging 17.3 points a game, and put in 24 against the Seminoles.
"I think I did my part in just carrying us and keeping us in the game in the first half," Sullivan said. "That's what I do. I don't try to score just to be scoring and get my points up, but I did that. I was hot in the first half, and the team started going in the second half."
Indeed, if Auburn wants to continue having success on the court, Sullivan will need help, and the extra production from the rest of the team has contributed to the strong play of the Tigers.
Auburn ended its out-of-conference play against FSU, and began SEC play Wednesday night against LSU.
Moving forward the Tigers have only SEC opponents, and the level of competition will get significantly higher.
Auburn will have difficult opponents in conference, but Barbee has seen his coaching affect the players a lot in the last few games.
"These guys have really understood and they've been buying into it all year long," Barbee said. "The last few games, they've really done a really good job of continuing to fight no matter the outcome."
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