Auburn basketball: 2019-20 season review and 2020-2021 first-look preview

Auburn basketball had another promising year in 2019-2020 with great players and memorable moments but what’s 2020-2021 have in store for the Tigers?

After an NCAA Tournament breakout campaign in 2019, Bruce Pearl’s Auburn Tigers returned with authority, finishing with a 25-6 record. 12-6 in the SEC brought them to second place in the conference, seemingly securing one of the top spots in this mid-March tournament. However, the coronavirus pandemic canceled all postseason play in men’s college basketball, including the NCAA Tournament.

The Tigers started the 2019-20 college season red-hot, winning their first 15 games of the campaign. Granted, most of it happened against non-conference opponents, but it propelled them through the early AP Poll.

The inevitable losses arrived against Alabama and Florida, and Auburn at times struggled to hold its own, including a disappointing 3-4 record in the regular season’s final seven games. Just one of those opponents (Kentucky) was ranked at the time. Due to this, Pearl’s team finished 20th in the final AP Poll.

The cold streak to end the season could have impacted Auburn in both the SEC and NCAA Tournaments. There was no momentum for them in the former, despite holding the No. 2 seed. They would have been a prime team for an upset, even though a spot in the Big Dance was essentially guaranteed.

As for the NCAA Tournament, winning the first-round matchup may have been in the cards, but everything afterward had the potential to kick the Tigers out. There’s, of course, no telling when a team will shake off a rut, and defeating Tennessee by 22 may have helped, but the Volunteers were 17-14 and going nowhere.

Beyond the hypotheticals, how did Auburn fare for the entire 2019-20 men’s basketball season? Let’s take a look: