In journalism, you sometimes have to ask questions to which you already know the answers.
This concept of asking the obvious was on full display Wednesday night in a side room of the Georgia Dome.
The latest Auburn men's basketball season had just ended in eye-opening fashion.
Although they had beat South Carolina twice during the regular season, the Tigers' chance at ending their long postseason losing streak drowned in a rain of 3-pointers from the Gamecocks.
South Carolina outshot, outrebounded and simply outhustled Auburn on its way to dominating almost every major statistical category.
Shortly before Director of Athletics Jay Jacobs told Tony Barbee that he was fired, head coach Tony Barbee took to the press conference podium.
What did you think of your team's performance, Coach?
"Overall, proud of the fight that the guys showed tonight," Barbee said in his postgame press conference. "But just a disappointing end."
Even though the Tigers put up their second-worst offensive performance of the season, Barbee still liked his team's effort.
No surprise there. Same answers, different game.
Find any Barbee press conference from this season, and you will most likely hear the now-former head coach talk about how proud he was of his team's "fight."
He said that at the end of Auburn's road loss at now-No. 1 Florida, a game in which the Tigers completely mangled the final minute of what could have been a monumental upset.
He also said that at the end of Auburn's incredibly flat home finale against bubble team Tennessee, who beat the Tigers by 28 points but could have won by a whole lot more.
In the close losses, the blowouts and even the few wins of the Barbee tenure, the message was always the same.
You got "the team's fighting hard" or "we're about to make that breakthrough" or, if you asked him the right question, silence.
For the last several games of this regular season, the Auburn head coach walked out of his press conferences whenever someone asked him a question about his future on the Plains.
But on Wednesday night, at a tournament press conference following his team's last game of the season, Barbee stayed and gave an answer to a question about his future -- and he knew that those in attendance already knew what he was going to say.
"Well, what do you want me to say?" Barbee asked.
No coach on the planet will ever lean back and say, "Yeah, I deserve to be fired." He is obviously going to say that he deserves to keep his job.
But Barbee took it a step further at the Georgia Dome, minutes before Jacobs delivered the news at the team hotel.
"This season was a bounce back year from our previous year," Barbee said. "Obviously, we won more games in the previous year...we doubled our SEC wins...our RPI was double what it was the year before."
I agree, Coach, those were definitely "positives," but they do not exist in a vacuum.
The Tigers' 14-16 record this season was Auburn's second-best season in the four-year Barbee era. Their six SEC wins this season marked the highest total since Barbee took over, but they were accompanied by a dozen conference losses.
Tony Barbee never had a winning season at Auburn. He was also 0-4 in SEC Tournament games.
Twelve players, including some of the program's highest-rated recruits in recent years, transferred from Auburn during Barbee's tenure.
Barbee was hired in 2010 to usher in a new era of Tigers basketball at the sparkling Auburn Arena.
Even though this was arguably Barbee's "best" season, attendance dropped to an arena-worst in 2013-14. For the first time in the building's short history, Auburn did not sell out a single game -- and the highest-attended one coincided with an Iron Bowl trophy presentation with the football team.
So was a slight uptick on a low plateau really substantial improvement?
Of course Tony Barbee said it was.
But it wasn't.
One hour and 40 minutes after the team's quick SEC Tournament exit, we heard something new come out of the Auburn men's basketball program.
In the end, that's what fans expected -- or at least hoped -- to hear after this season.
Just like the majority of Barbee's answers during his tenure.
The same questions were always asked. The answers never changed.
And if Tony Barbee stayed at Auburn, I don't think the program would ever have a chance to change.
The monotony had to stop.
I don't know what Auburn's next head coach will bring to the table. I believe Auburn is one of the toughest jobs in power-conference basketball.
A new coach will not guarantee success, but the change was definitely needed.
It's time to hear something new out of Auburn men's basketball.
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