Auburn fans mock BBN, Rupp Arena atmosphere: "We just don't have as [many] lazy old people as y'all."
“Just like any other Friday on the Plains,” Bruce Pearl said ahead of the matchup. “Jay Bilas is on the main floor, there are a thousand kids camping out, Jungleville — I call it Jungleville — you can feel the energy on campus. College GameDay, Kentucky is in town.”
Auburn is doing it right. Fans have been camped out since Wednesday evening, three full nights before Kentucky showed up. They’re lined up in tents across campus with food trucks and games, Mario Kart played on a massive projector screen, poker tables, basketball goals — the whole nine yards. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Remember what Big Blue Madness campout used to be? That’s what the Tigers are doing in the middle of the regular season ahead of an SEC matchup as the home favorite.
“It’s the Kentucky effect,” one fan told KSR at the campout.
It’s setting up to be an all-time atmosphere inside Neville Arena on Saturday in the top-25 matchup. The venue is expected to be at capacity with all 9,121 seats filled and standing-room-only sections shoulder-to-shoulder.
The issue? It always is. This is kind of the norm on The Plains, Auburn quickly earning a reputation for hosting one of the best home environments in college basketball. The venue is smaller, but packs a ridiculous punch that very few nationally can compete with.
Rupp Arena used to be a place opposing teams feared in the SEC, an event every time those doors opened, no matter the opponent. Now, Auburn is making fun of Kentucky for thinking it still has that same home edge — what the college basketball world will see at Neville Arena later this evening.
A direct shot at the fans, particularly those in the lower bowl of Rupp.
“We just don’t have as [many] lazy old people as y’all,” an Auburn fan told KSR at the campout Friday evening. “No offense, but that whole side is just old people that sit the whole game. It’s all the old people on that one side, they sit the entire game. It’ll be like a two-point game, one minute left and old people are like [soft claps].”
When you own a 16-game home winning streak — good for seventh longest in NCAA Division I — as the lone unbeaten SEC team at home this season, you can talk your talk.
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