TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Auburn ain’t sharing. Tigers players made that clear while celebrating clinching the outright SEC regular-season title following Alabama’s defeat at Tennessee on Saturday.
A social media post from Auburn basketball’s X account posted a video of Tigers players watching as Tennessee guard Jahmai Mashack hit a buzzer-beating 3 from roughly half-court to beat Alabama. Alabama’s loss moved it three games behind Auburn with two games to go in the SEC regular season, clinching the conference title for the Tigers.
Auburn players weren’t the only ones celebrating the title while reveling in Alabama’s misery. Tigers head coach Bruce Pear, who coached Tennessee from 2005-11, fired off celebratory message following the buzzer-beater, posting “VFL and War Damn Eagle!”
Will that serve as bulletin-board material for No. 7 Alabama, which ends its regular season with a home game against No. 5 Florida on Wednesday before traveling to take on top-ranked Auburn this weekend?
Not really.
Alabama head coach Nate Oats said one of the celebration posts was sent to him over the weekend, but he had yet to even mention it to his players. As far as he’s concerned, it’s just part of the heated Iron Bowl rivalry
“Obviously, they don’t like us,” Oats said. “We don’t like them either. That’s kind of the way it goes in this state.”
Oats isn’t taking the celebration too personally.
“If the roles would have been reversed, I’m sure we would have been celebrating winning the regular-season championship as well,” Oats said. “I mean, it was more to me about — we lost, that guaranteed them the regular-season championship.
“It’s probably also helpful that it was Alabama that lost, I’m sure.”
Auburn (27-2, 15-1) clinched the SEC title in dominant fashion. The Tigers’ two losses have come against teams currently ranked in the top five — No. 2 Duke and No. 5 Florida. They also took down Alabama, 94-85, in Tuscaloosa last month.
“Everybody plays to win championships,” Oats said. “They won it. You’ve got to give them their respect. They’ve done an unbelievable job this year. They’re a good team. We get one more crack at them. But before we do that, we’ve got Florida.”
Instead of fueling his players through social media posts, Oats has stressed the importance of Wednesday’s game against Florida. Alabama (23-6, 12-4) can clinch at least a top-three seed in the SEC tournament with a win over the Gators (25-4, 12-4).
While Alabama players’ first focus is Wednesday’s matchup, they are hoping to spark a revenge tour at Auburn and in the SEC tournament in the coming week.
“We’ve still got the SEC tournament … and we still have Auburn for their senior night,” Sears said. “So we still get to see them, and then hopefully in the SEC tournament we’re able to see Tennessee and all the teams we lost to. Hopefully we’ll be able to see all the teams we lost to again.”
