Athletic Director Jay Jacobs has publicly stated his support for Auburn basketball coach Tony Barbee.
Support for a coach who led a team to a 9-23 record in his third year at Auburn, which, by the way, is tied for the most losses ever by an SEC program.
Here is what Jacobs said: "This was obviously a disappointing season for our men's basketball program, but I want to commend our players and especially our seniors for playing hard all season."
Sure, they played hard, and they even came close to winning a few big games. But nobody cares about almost wins or "playing hard." All fans care about is winning, and that didn't happen but nine times. Five of those wins were all but worthless anyway, because they were out of conference nobodies.
Give the Tigers four quality wins in their three SEC victories, including Alabama, the last victory of the season, and Florida State.
It's Barbee's third year, and if Auburn truly takes this program seriously, something has to change. If not the coach, then something about the coach has to change, because this is not working.
Here's a statistic: in three years at Auburn Barbee's team's record is 35-59 (12-38 SEC). That means he has won less than 25 percent of his SEC games, and never has he defeated more than five in-conference opponents.
Last season the men's basketball team had its best year under Barbee. It went 15-16 (5-11 SEC) and things were looking up for the program until this season's debacle.
Jacobs went on to say "my expectation for our program is to show significant improvement under Coach Barbee's leadership. Coach Barbee and I will continue to work together to support our basketball program at the highest level so we can give our fans the kind of program they expect and deserve."
The fans, especially the students who were itching to see winners after a miserable football season, definitely deserve better, and they threw full support behind the team. That is, until the team lost 16 of its last 17 games.
So, since Barbee probably won't be leaving (this season at least) all an Auburn fan can do is get behind him, and hope that the program can get back to a respectable position.
That's what he was hired for in the first place was it not?
There are probably a number of reasons Barbee hasn't been released.
The first is likely that he's only three years in and that isn't enough time to get a program going in the right direction, but some would say three years is plenty of time.
Another potential reason could be that Jacobs does not want it to look like he gives all of his coaches the ax after a bad season. After all, he did just can Gene Chizik after a dismal season.
The final reason could be that Auburn doesn't want to pile on another three million (which is what Auburn would owe Barbee if he was fired now) to the $11.09 million the University already owes Chizik and his fired staff.
Well, it looks like Barbee will stay, for the nonce anyway, so if that's the case, the Auburn faithful will hope to see a better season next year, because it could certainly be his last if things don't go well.
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