NCAA Tournament: 2019 Final Four favorites from each seed line (8-1)
By Chris Kern
Five Seed: Auburn
The Auburn Tigers are a team full of talent but you do need to be careful when picking them to go on a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. They have been inconsistent for much of the season prior to winning the SEC Tournament. Their talent is there but it was also there last season and we saw them get blown out in the 2nd round last season against Clemson 84-53.
That one game shows that when the struggle to hit shots, they are very vulnerable which has been a large part of their struggles. That’s who they are though and they’re not going to change that. On the flip side of that when you have a team like that they’re capable of catching fire from three-point range that alone can take you a long way.
This is a team that shoots a lot of three-pointers. On the season they have gone 396-1052, which comes out at 38%. That is the most makes for a team and the third most attempts. They have two elite guards in Bryce Brown and Jared Harper who led the way for them on the offensive end of the floor.
We have seen how good they can be at times as well as how much they struggle at times. In their SEC Championship win over Tennessee, they went 15-40 from three-point range in the 84-64 win. But then when they played at Kentucky we saw the other side of it when they went 19-58 from the field, including 8-27 from three-point range in a 53-80 loss.
They have won eight straight games since then which shows they’re playing well which gives them a lot of confidence heading into the NCAA Tournament. This is a team reliant on their guard play but they do have some other valuable players who can impact the game in many ways such as Anfernee McLemore and Chuma Okeke.
They start their NCAA Tournament run against a very good 12th seeded New Mexico State Aggies team. They have a 30-4 record and have been playing at a high level, led by an extremely balanced attack with their leading scorer Terrell Brown averaging just 11.3 points per game.
Their region is full of tough blue blood programs such as the Kansas Jayhawks, North Carolina Tar Heels, and the Kentucky Wildcats so they will need to play their best to have a chance. When you have a team this talented that can light up the scoreboard like they can anything is possible and that’s why they can make a Final Four run.