The Auburn Arena is a misleading place this spring.
The large, raucous crowds that have congregated in the Arena for men’s basketball games might convince the casual observer that it’s the home of an NCAA Tournament-caliber team.
And yet Auburn is hardly that.
At this moment, the Tigers are not even an NIT team in coach Bruce Pearl’s first season at the helm.
It can’t even be said that the Tigers are better at home, as they’re currently mired in a five-game losing streak in the Arena.
There have been flashes of improvement during conference play, but Auburn’s flaws as a team have been routinely exposed by the bigger, more athletic competition of SEC teams.
The Tigers haven’t caught many breaks either, with Tahj Shamsid-Deen’s injuries and the health of Antoine Mason’s father the most impactful of all.
Yet a constant through the struggles has been impressive crowds, which have created a passionate and, at times, game-changing environment.
This definitely wasn’t the case for Auburn basketball over the last decade.
To quote a former co-worker, Auburn’s student section was “a joke” in recent years, and who could blame them with the poor results on the court?
That’s no longer true. With the exception of the Arkansas game, The Jungle has been filled to the brim for every conference game so far this season.
Even the general admission seats, which were often half empty under former coach Tony Barbee, are filled- in for the most part.
Pearl and his staff deserve an immense amount of credit for marketing and building energy around the team this season.
The idea of selling out season tickets is something Auburn has not thought about in basketball since 1999, when Chris Porter was on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Fan support even played a role in conference wins against Missouri and South Carolina, according to Pearl and his players.
With Kentucky, LSU and Texas A&M up next for the Tigers, the wins figure to be tough to come by in the final weeks of the regular season.
Moving forward, it’s hard not to imagine the potential for the Auburn Arena if Pearl builds a contender in the coming years.
Even with that random DJ.
Eric Wallace is the sports editor for The Plainsman. He can be reached at sports@theplainsman.com.
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