Skip to main content
Auburn
Join Now

Morning reads: Tournament time, All-SEC snubs, Jabari Smith's stock rising and more

Justin Hokansonby: Justin Hokanson05/24/22_JHokanson

Good morning, Auburn fans, and welcome to the Morning Reads. Every day, we’ll cover news, notes and analysis from across Tigers’ athletics, and the sporing world. Join us each morning to get caught up on everything you missed in the world of Auburn football, recruiting, basketball, baseball and much more in Morning Reads.

Are you subscribed to Auburn Live yet?

Are you ready to get all your latest Auburn news in one place? Become a member of Auburn Live today. With your Auburn Live/On3+ membership, you’ll not only have access to the everything that’s happening with the Tigers, but you’ll also be able to peruse other fan sites within the network to hear just how rivals are feeling about Auburn, as well. Make sure to follow along on Twitter.

It’s tournament time

No. 20 Auburn (37-18, 16-13 SEC) will square off with Kentucky (30-24, 12-18 SEC) for a fourth straight game to begin the SEC Tournament Tuesday night in Hoover, Alabama.

First pitch against the Wildcats at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium will take place approximately 30 minutes after the conclusion of the third game of the tournament’s opening day. The game will be televised on SEC Network.

“We have to do everything we can to enter the double elimination portion of this deal,” head coach Butch Thompson said. “We get another chance against a team we just played that we feel like they didn’t see our best and we can do more, and we have to execute some things at a higher level.”

Butch Thompson and Tim Hudson are scheduled to start Carson Skipper (5-3, 4.81) against Kentucky’s Sean Harvey (5-4, 2.93). These Tuesday games in the SEC Tournament are always interesting due to the pitching matchups. It’s basically bullpen versus bullpen until you get to Thursday, if you get to Thursday.

This was Auburn’s most successful regular season since 2010. We’ll see if Thompson and his club can capitalize on the momentum in the postseason.

Auburn recognized, and snubbed, by SEC postseason awards

Sonny DiChiara was named the Southeastern Conference Co-Player of the Year and First Team All-SEC, while Blake Burkhalter earned Second Team All-SEC honors and Blake Rambusch was named to the SEC All-Defensive Team, the league office announced Monday.

Can we talk about the snubs first? While Rambusch earned All-Defensive Team honors, how in the world did he not make first or second team All-SEC?

Rambusch led the league with 80 hits, hit .351, which was good for top ten in the league, and was third in the league with 16 stolen bases.

If you consider Rambusch one of, if not the best defensive third basemen in the league, and he displays the offensive numbers he did this season, not to mention leading off for a team that finishes fifth in the league, not making first or second team All-SEC makes little sense.

I’d also argue Joseph Gonzalez deserved first or second team honors. He finished 6-2 with a 2.74 ERA. If not for his final two Sunday starts being cut short to weather delays, Gonzalez was on track to be 8-2 on the season. The eight wins would have placed Gonzalez tied for second in the league in wins.

Now, on to the no-brainer selections.

DiChiara becomes the third player in program history to earn the league’s highest award, joining Tim Hudson (1997) and Hunter Morris (2010) on the short list, and Auburn’s three honorees in 2022 are the second most in a season since 2010.

DiChiara, who has already been named a semifinalist for the Dick Howser Trophy, finished the regular season as the league leader in on-base percentage (.561) and slugging percentage (.782) while ranking second in batting average (.382). His on-base clip is also good for the national lead, while his slugging percentage is the fifth best in the country.

A native of Hoover, Alabama, DiChiara is tied for third among active Division I players with 58 career home runs and has homered 17 this year, matching Edouard Julien’s total from 2018 for the most by an Auburn player since 2010. He has drawn 62 walks this season, the most in the country and the second most in the team’s single-season history, and has reached base in all but one game, including multiple times on 43 occasions.

Burkhalter is Auburn’s first relief pitcher to earn first or second team honors since John Madden in 2005. The junior right-hander’s 13 saves, including 10 in league play, are three more than any other pitcher in the SEC, the fourth most in the country and tied for the most among Power Five pitchers.

Burkhalter, who has also been named to the NCBWA Stopper of the Year midseason watch list earlier this season, has earned a win or a save in 17 of his team-high 25 appearances. He earned a save in each game of Auburn’s three-game sweep against South Carolina to not only become the first pitcher in program history to accomplish the feat, but also become the first SEC pitcher to do so since 2017.

ESPN releases SP+ football projections

Everyone has their own method for projecting how the 2022 college football season will turn out, with most ranking their top 25 teams before the year begins. For ESPN’s Bill Connelly — he uses a formula called the SP+, where he takes returning production, recently recruiting rankings, and recent history into account as well.

Where does Auburn fall? The Tigers are No. 22 in the projections.

Here’s the entire projections, led by Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia.

Jabari Smith’s stock rising after NBA Combine?

It’s not like Jabari Smith’s stock could rise much more, but ESPN’s Jonathan Givony named Jabari Smith as one of the “winners” of the combine. Here’s what Givony said of Smith, and Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren:

Tuesday’s lottery removed one of the big questions from the 2022 NBA draft — who is picking first? — and cleared a path for Jabari Smith to make a short trip from Atlanta to join what’s becoming one of the most interesting young rosters in the NBA in the Orlando Magic. While Magic executives have made it clear they will conduct a thorough process — even extending beyond the widely believed top three prospects in Jabari Smith, Holmgren and Paolo Banchero — most NBA teams firmly believe that’s a formality and that Jabari Smith is all but assured to become the top pick. Smith, for his part, appears thrilled with that development. So is Holmgren over his looming marriage with the Oklahoma City Thunder, which is also the overwhelming expectation from NBA executives with whom we spoke at the draft combine.

If you have an ESPN+ subscription, you can read the rest.

SEC discussing its own playoff?

ESPN’s Pete Thamel writes:

One idea certain to be discussed by SEC officials in Destin is the notion of the SEC creating, running and profiting from its own intra-SEC postseason. The most obvious model is an eight-team one, but there are others that will be discussed.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey stressed that no seismic change is imminent. But he did mention that an SEC-only playoff, in a variety of forms, was among the nearly 40 different models that SEC officials discussed at their fall meetings.

What would that look like? We’ll explore more later. But could we see an eight-team tournament that eventually faces the winner of some other group — The Alliance? The Big Ten? The rest of the leagues playing in a different postseason? Or, perhaps they all get mad at the SEC and don’t play their winner. We’re in a world of hypotheticals on hypotheticals.

You can read Thamel’s entire article at ESPN.com.

New SEC schedule coming

Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger writes:

A week before the SEC’s leaders gather in Destin for their annual spring meetings, the 35 different potential football schedules have been cut to two: an eight-game format where teams play one permanent opponent and seven rotating opponents (1–7 model); and a nine-game format where teams play three permanent opponents and six rotating (3–6).

While most officials feel strongly that divisions are likely gone, and a pod system first floated out in the fall has been eliminated, the conference is virtually split on what to do next: eight conference games or nine? With this issue—and so many others—the SEC is divided mostly on revenue-generating lines.

You can read the entire story here.