Auburn Basketball: Keys to avoiding the upset to College of Charleston

The Auburn Tigers come into this year’s NCAA Tournament a little on the cool side having dropped three out of their last four games. What is their winning formula against 13th seeded College of Charleston though?

It is a bit of a bittersweet moment for the Auburn Tigers in 2018. On the one hand, they snapped their NCAA Tournament drought which stretched all the way back to 2002-’03. However, while they made the tournament for the first time in over a decade, they come in squandering. The Tigers have lost three out of their last four games coming into this second round match-up. Not only that, they were absolutely embarrassed by Alabama in their only SEC tournament game. It is worth noting that Auburn was the number one seed in that tournament.

Never the less, the Tigers were able to score a four seed after finishing the year 25-7 and 13-5 in the SEC. Third-seeded Tennessee is the only SEC team ranked higher than Auburn out of the eight SEC teams featured in the tournament. The first test for the Tigers is the College of Charleston, the champions of the Colonial. After scoring the conference regular season crown, the Cougars defeated bitter foe Northeastern in the conference tournament. It is their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 1998-’99.

The Cougars finished their season at 26-7 with a 14-4 conference record. They are by no means a team to be taken lightly despite being a 13 seed in this tournament. So, what is Auburn’s gameplan? How do they avoid the upset and end their recent dry spell?