QUARANTINE MAILBAG: Auburn baby names Pearl-era fantasy basketball and bagels
© Jake Crandall Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn talks with his team after the game during the A-Day spring practice game at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Ala., on Saturday, April 13, 2019. AUBURN — One of my least favorite things about covering Auburn is that the A-Day spring game is always played on Saturday of the Masters.
That's purely selfish. I just love watching the Masters. It's the best golf tournament of the year. And seeing the third-round tweets roll across my timeline while I'm watching a spring football scrimmage always hurts.
I would give just about anything to be on my way to Jordan-Hare Stadium right now, though — Saturday marks a full month since the sports world shut down because of coronavirus.
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But let's not dwell on what could have been. Let's try to have some fun while we're all stuck inside. I asked for some fun questions for this week's Auburn Mailbag, and many of you delivered.
Here we go:
People are saying nine months from now we're going to have a lot of babies being born because of the quarantine. What would be your top Auburn fan quarantine baby name suggestions?
— @AuburnElvis
The classics (Bo, Pat, Cameron, Charles) haven't gone out of style. But if you want to pay homage to some of Auburn's more recent athletes, including ones that were denied a chance to compete in the postseason this year, you could go with pretty much any of the fan favorites on the basketball team, such as Jared, Bryce, Isaac or Austin. If you need a girl's name, stay current with Madison or Kasey, or go back in time and bring Ruthie back into style. And if you just want your baby to be super cool, how about Cadillac, Big Kat, Flash, Smoke, Worm, Rowdy or Shug?
© Jake Crandall Addison Care Hicks, 4, and Aedin Andersen, 4, walk through tailgates at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Ala., on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019. How does the delay of the Olympics affect Anthony Schwartz's decision about whether to focus on track and leave the football team?
— Cory (@corymgreer)
It kind of makes the decision for him, doesn't it? Schwartz said after Auburn's loss in the Outback Bowl that, if he ran well enough during the track and field season to qualify for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, he would have a decision to make about whether he wanted to continue playing football. But there won't be a decision to make this year — the outdoor track and field circuit, both at Auburn and nationally, has been canceled, and the Olympics won't take place until 2021. This might even help Schwartz — he gets another year of football (in a potentially more pass-heavy offense) and another year to train for the Olympics before he has to decide.
© Jake Crandall Auburn guard Jared Harper (1) passes the ball to guard Bryce Brown (2) as they take on Kentucky at Auburn Arena in Auburn, Ala., on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019. If you had to be quarantined in one Auburn athletic facility, which one would it be and why?
— @wjlanesr
This one is easy. It's Auburn Arena. I've got a court to shoot hoops on. The team room is brand new and almost certainly has comfortable couches and a large TV. There might not be any food left over at the concession stands, but I'm sure I could cook up a meal in one of those kitchens. And I know for a fact there's a full-service bar tucked behind the seats. I don't know what it's used for, but I've seen it. Plus, I've used the media workroom as my tornado shelter more than once. It'll feel just like home.
People asked you all season how far the Auburn basketball team could go in the NCAA Tournament. All season, you said wait till March. March came and went, and we never got to find out. So, it's time to answer. How far do you really think they could have gone?
— Dave (@DaveMcKinney)
Bruce Pearl was asked that same question on March 20. His is answer was, "I wouldn't begin to even predict what that would look like." I think he's exactly right. The reason I declined to make any sort of prediction in December, January or February is because there was no way to predict what would happen in March. There is no way to predict what might have happened in March had the postseason not been canceled, no matter how many different people try to sim or project it. The Auburn team that went to Knoxville and torched Tennessee on the final day of the regular season looked like it could make a deep postseason run just like it did last year. But the team that lost at home to Texas A&M three days earlier looked like a team that could have been upset in the first round of the SEC Tournament, especially if it had to face those same Aggies again. Auburn's 2020 postseason fate will always be an unknown. Nothing I write in this space will change that.
Pick one player from each of the last five Auburn men's basketball teams to create a starting five. P.S. — each player's skill level is dependent on how they played that season. For example, 2016-17 Jared Harper is not the same as 2018-19 Jared Harper.
— AJ @auburnaj
This is an exceptional Mailbag question. And a difficult one, too. Take the 2019-20 Tigers — Samir Doughty was a fearless, All-SEC scorer; Isaac Okoro was a lottery talent on the wing, and Austin Wiley had a career year at center. All three would be great pieces on any team, but I have to choose just one. Same goes for the 2018-19 campaign — that was a career year for all three of Jared Harper, Bryce Brown and Chuma Okeke, but I can't take them all. Still, there is a strong starting five to be put together here:
Favorite Auburn basketball moment of the year, and why?
— Max (@Max_Jackson2)
You mean, other than every reference to Auburn on "The Bachelor?" The answer you might expect would be the four come-from-behind overtime SEC wins, two of which (LSU and Tennessee) were at home. That stretch late against LSU, started by J'Von McCormick's back-to-back-to-back 3s in barely more than a minute, is one of the most impressive stretches of basketball I've seen covering Auburn. But, as a reporter trying to write a story on deadline, those games stress me out. Very little of that is fun for me.
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My favorite moments usually come postgame. There was the time that McLemore brought in his son Maverick, and when he got a little fussy, handed him off to a very scared looking SID, Cody Voga. Or when reporters asked Devan Cambridge what his vertical was, and McCormick, sitting next to him, quickly pointed out that his was higher. Or when The Athletic's Justin Ferguson asked Doughty and McCormick if they felt like Harper and Brown, and Doughty quickly shot back, "Nah, we felt like Samir and J'Von." Or when Wiley answered his phone during a press conference because his mom called. Basketball is exciting to watch, but interacting with coaches and players as people off the court is what will stick with me the longest.
Bruce Pearl's Auburn vs. Andy Kennedy's UAB: Do we get this next year? If so, where? Expounding (and yes, I understand this is likely outside your scope of knowledge), what are the chances somebody puts together an event with Alabama and Auburn playing at the BJCC on the same night?
— Micah (@MicahGarner50)
I don't know if Auburn vs. UAB will for sure happen, but I think there's a good chance it will. The two schools have played each other four times since Pearl became head coach, and he and Kennedy have a relationship from their time coaching against each other (and from Kennedy's time calling games on TV the past two seasons). I'd love to see a home and home set up.
I would also love to see Alabama be a part of the Mike Slive Invitational. Maybe UAB, too. And why not South Alabama or Troy, as well? It would be awesome to see that one game at the BJCC turn into a three-game event featuring the state's biggest college basketball programs, especially since it's for a good cause.
Hypothetically, let's pretend you're Conor Davis or Rankin Woley. What do you do? Now, let's pretend you're Tanner Burns. What do you do depending on how the draft goes?
— Micah (@MicahGarner50)
Let me start by saying that I'm glad I'm not any of these players right now. They're all in such difficult positions, torn between beginning their professional futures (in baseball or otherwise) and ending their college baseball career on their terms. And it's not a simple decision. Davis and Woley are seniors who have been given the option to return for another year, but baseball is only one factor to consider. They're both set to graduate in May. Playing another season means starting a graduate or master's program they may not be able to finish in a year. They would have to pay for it, too — baseball players don't receive full-ride scholarships, and Davis said another year of housing costs and student loans could be a burden on his family. And with the MLB Draft being shortened and bonuses for undrafted players being capped, they don't have as easy a path toward playing professionally. Burns' path is easier. The right-hander is talented enough to be a top-five-round pick in the draft, and maybe even a first-rounder. That's normally a no-brainer decision for a junior, and it might be for him. But the fact that this past season had barely begun before it ended could cross his mind.
© Nati Harnik, AP Auburn's Steven Williams (41), Kason Howell (16) and Rankin Woley (4) sit in the dugout following their 5-3 loss to Louisville in a College World Series elimination baseball game in Omaha, Neb., Wednesday, June 19, 2019. Other SEC schools have begun scheduling multiple Power 5 nonconference opponents per year starting in 2025 assuming the College Football Playoff will expand. Has Auburn considered doing this, and should it do so?
— John (@jkringer)
If Auburn has considered doing it, it hasn't done it yet. It has only has one Power 5 nonconference game scheduled per year from 2025-28 — Baylor the first two years and UCLA the next two. But it still has room left on those nonconference slates to follow the lead of programs such as Alabama, Florida and Georgia, which do have multiple Power 5 nonconference games scheduled past 2025. It's easier for Florida and Georgia, which have rivalries built in (Florida State/Miami and Georgia Tech, respectively), but even Alabama has both Florida State and Wisconsin scheduled in 2025 and Florida State and West Virginia scheduled in 2026. The idea behind it is boosting resumes in the event the Playoff expands to eight teams, which would mean multiple at-large bids for non-conference champions.
To answer the second part of the question, I don't think Auburn necessarily needs to follow those programs' lead. No other team plays Alabama, LSU and Georgia every season. Add one nonconference game to that, and Auburn is already playing as hard as a schedule as there is in the country. But as a general fan of college football, I would like to see all teams start scheduling multiple Power 5 nonconference games per year. I wouldn't mind seeing a ninth conference game, too. Keeping one cupcake on the schedule per year is fine, but there's no reason an SEC team needs to be wasting three of its 12 regular season games on the likes of Akron, Mercer and New Mexico State.
If Auburn could add one of the following sports, which would you choose? Men's soccer, curling, rugby, lacrosse, fencing, water polo, rowing.
— Michelle (@michelleCbush)
Auburn almost certainly isn't talking about adding any sports, given how much money has already been lost due to the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament and the uncertain status for the 2020 football season (plus the Title IX implications). But if I, personally, got to choose one of those sports to add, it would 100% be lacrosse. It's just such a fun sport. It's popularity hasn't moved south of North Carolina just yet, but I fell in love with it watching it in high school and college. It's basically elements of soccer (the field, spacing), basketball (how offense is run) and hockey (sticks, live-action substitutions) mixed together, and it can be incredibly exciting — last year, I watched a game where Maryland trailed by two goals at the start of the fourth quarter, led by two with 5:31 left, trailed by one with 1:50 left, tied the game with three seconds left, then won 14-13 in sudden death overtime. Auburn already has club lacrosse, too — the team was 6-3 before the rest of the season was canceled.
Where does Big Blue Bagel rank in terms of bagels? Like, the overall ranking of bagels. Where do you put it?
— @TdashTill
Big Blue is OK. It's better than the Thomas bagels you can buy in the grocery store (which are better than Panera, whose "bagels" are just round bread with a hole in the middle). But it's not as good as Einstein Bros., which serves a pretty solid bagel, as far as chains go (I was a regular at the one in Tiger Town before it closed a few years ago). As far as rankings go, Big Blue, Thomas and Einstein Bros. aren't even on the same list as real New York bagels. New York City and the rest of the tri-state area is Division I. FBS. Everything else is Division II or III.
Last weekend, thanks to Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic, I discovered that you can get Ess-a-Bagels — aka the best bagel in New York City — delivered. I got myself two dozen. They arrived individually wrapped in a box two days later. And the first bite I took of a toasted poppy seed with cream cheese made my heart skip a beat.
Has Bo Nix been named starting punter yet?
— Ed (@ejclark34)
No, but it should be the first order of business as soon as this quarantine is over.
Josh Vitale is the Auburn beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. You can follow him on Twitter at @JoshVitale. To reach him by email, click here.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: QUARANTINE MAILBAG: Auburn baby names, Pearl-era fantasy basketball, and bagels
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