The No. 4 seeded Auburn Tigers — SEC Tournament champions — take on the East Region’s No. 13 seed, the Yale Bulldogs —Ivy League champs thanks to a thrilling buzzer beater — Friday at 4:15 pm ET in Spokane, Washington (you can get tickets here). The game will be broadcast on TNT.
The Teams
Auburn Tigers (27-7, 13-5 SEC)
Auburn won the SEC Tournament, beating Florida 86-67 on Selection Sunday. Johni Broome and Jaylin Williams combine to average nearly 30 points and more than 12 rebounds per game. That’s one of the better frontcourt duos in the SEC. Auburn can guard, and that’s why the Tigers have won so many games. Bruce Pearl’s teams are almost always tough and defend at a high level. He also goes deep into his bench, which can help wear down teams, but also manages foul trouble and injury issues.
The backcourt, however, is mediocre. Freshman Aden Holloway was terrific early, but struggled mightily in SEC play, shooting 25 percent from 3-point range. Denver Jones (FIU transfer) has been solid and Tre Donaldson plays hard, but they are limited. Pearl doesn’t have a guard who he can just give the ball to and trust to go make a play. Broome and Williams are the two best players, and both are frontcourt guys. That’s not the recipe for tourney success.
Still, Pearl can coach. There’s no doubt about that. But this isn’t a team that can match up talent-wise with some of the other top teams in the country. Pearl has overachieved with his talent, but that’s not to say that the Tigers — who play a lot of guys — can’t find a way into the second weekend with a star big man in Broome. But much will depend on the perimeter play. —Jeff Goodman, The Field of 68
Yale Bulldogs (22-9, 11-3 Ivy)
During the regular season, the Bulldogs ranked No. 82 in effective field goal percentage offense, netting 52.8 percent inside the arc and 34.7 percent outside of it. Power forward Matt Knowling and long point guard Bez Mbeng were particularly effective on near-proximity shots. Both have combined for 59.1 percent from 2. Most impactful is 7-footer Danny Wolf, who not only flexes in the post but also launches accurate arrows from distance (34.2 percent on 3-pointers).
James Jones’ crew isn’t the most studious defensively (No. 134 eFG percentage D), but its assertiveness on the glass and cautiousness with the rock make Yale a decent Cinderella candidate. — Brad Evans, The Gaming Juice
Yale came into this season having gone to three of the past six tournaments in which the Ivy League participated — the league sat out the 2021 tournament because of COVID-19 — and beat Baylor in the 2016 first round.
Yet coach James Jones told me in the preseason, “This is my most talented team from top to bottom.”
Things haven’t gone as easily as Jones might have predicted; the Bulldogs took a backseat to Princeton in attention and rankings for most of the year, they started just 7-6 and lost to Brown at home in overtime on the regular season’s final day to miss out on a share of the conference title.
And then Yale looked to be cooked late against Brown in the Ivy title game.
But … talent prevails. Matt Knowling, Bez Mbeng and John Poulakidas all made key plays down the stretch. Yale has the rare Ivy luxury of a talented 7-footer in Danny Wolf, whom Jones, in a bit of breathless preseason hyperbole, compared to a young Nikola Jokić. — Brian Bennett
The Athletic’s model after 1,000,000 simulations predicts the score will be:
No. 4 Auburn vs. No. 13 Yale Odds
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(Top photo: Gregory Fisher/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images, Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
