Before the college basketball season started, the Kansas Jayhawks were ranked as the preseason No. 1 team and Auburn was ranked No. 11 by the associated press.
Since that poll came out, both the Jayhawks and Tigers haven’t lost a game and remain perfect.
Both teams have added three quad-one wins to their resume. The difference of those quad-one wins is two of Auburn’s three wins have been against AP top-five teams. Kansas' wins have all been outside the AP top-10.
Auburn also has won arguably the most difficult in-season tournament of the year in the Maui Invitational with a loaded field of teams — the Tigers' path to the title being No. 5 Iowa State, No. 12 North Carolina and Memphis.
Bruce Pearl's squad is also a top five team in the metrics, ranking No.1 in KenPom and No. 4 in Bart Torvik. According to KenPom's metrics, Auburn has the No.1 offensive team in the country with a top five defense.
Senior Johni Broome is in conversations to be national player of the year early in the season, as he averages 20.7 points and 12.3 rebounds on 60.5% shooting from the field. Very similar numbers to last year’s player of the year Zach Edey, who led his team to the national championship game.
Seth Greenberg during halftime of Auburn’s game against North Carolina on Tuesday night said that the Tigers are 'the most complete team' he’s seen so far this season.
“I mean, the player of the year don't really matter to me. You know, I care about winning alone. We keep winning. That's how the eyes are on you,” Broome said.
Even if the Tigers aren’t polled in the top spot of the sport come next Monday, they’ll have another opportunity to make their case in a showdown with No. 11 Duke inside of Cameron Indoor Stadium in the SEC/ACC challenge on Wednesday, Dec. 4.
Even more non-conference opportunities are slated for Auburn throughout the season with the Holiday Hoopsgiving against Ohio State and a neutral-site matchup against a top 15 team in Purdue still to come in the month of December.
“I promise you this, we’ll stay humble and hungry,” Pearl said. “We’ll not begin to think much of ourselves.”
This team is loaded with experience combined with talent. It is why Pearl scheduled his team for multiple tough non-conference games.
“There are some reasons why we scheduled up as hard as we possibly could,” said Pearl. “I wanted to give these guys the opportunity. So now we get to see if we can take advantage of it.”
So what will AP pollers care about more?
A preseason No. 1 team that is undefeated and has wins against several historical blue bloods?
Or an Auburn team that won the toughest Thanksgiving week in-season tournament and hold three wins against AP top-12 opponents seven games into the season?
Time will tell eventually who is currently the best team is in the nation.
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William Halliday is a junior journalism major from Memphis, Tennessee. He started with the Plainsman in fall 2022.
You can follow him on X (Twitter) at @wphalliday3
