not sure if y'all had seen this
ESPN BPI projects Auburn's 2020-21 schedule
By NATHAN KING
Auburn basketball won’t be playing any postseason games at the end of its 2020-21 season after self-imposing a ban Sunday. But the regular season, at least, is finally here.
Bruce Pearl’s youngest Tigers team yet opens on Thanksgiving day against Saint Joseph’s as part of a multi-team event in Fort Myers, Florida. Auburn will play Gonzaga, the No. 1 team in college basketball, the following day, and will hang around in the Sunshine State for a matchup with UCF on Monday before returning to the Plains for its home opener against South Alabama on Dec. 4.
Indefinitely, Auburn will be without highly anticipated freshman point guard
Sharife Cooper, as the program works to “resolve” an undisclosed NCAA eligibility issue for the former five-star prospect. He didn’t travel to Fort Myers.
“I don’t think Auburn has had a team that’s lost its entire starting five since 1950 — that just tells you how sort of unprecedented this is,” Pearl said this week. “This is really, truly going to be a new experience.
“If you look back at my press conferences leading up to the seasons, and you would ask me the questions, ‘What do you want to learn?’ And bottom line is I want to get exposed and see what we have and see what our strengths are, see what our weaknesses are, evaluate them, make the adjustments that are necessary to improve, and go from there.”
The Tigers’ nonconference slate isn’t completely filled out after most college basketball programs had to rework their schedules as a result of the coronavirus pandemic’s effect on the sport. It’s unclear whether Auburn will add more games or will roll with what it’s got before the season tips off tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. CST.
We do, however, know 26 of Auburn’s games for this season. And just in the nick of time late Tuesday night, ESPN finally updated its Basketball Power Index rankings and projections for 2020-21.
According to ESPN’s definition, “Basketball Power Index measures a team's true strength going forward; expected point margin per 70 possessions vs an average opponent on a neutral court.” Teams can have negative BPI scores, so they’re measured how far above or below average a team is expected to be against a standard opponent.
Let’s take a look at what the BPI thinks about Auburn, and how it sees each game on the Tigers’ schedule playing out.
- Overall BPI score projection: 1.4 (134th in the country)
- Offensive score projection: 0.4 (153rd)
- Defensive score projection: 1.0 (134th in the country)
NONCONFERENCE SCHEDULE
- Nov. 26 vs. Saint Joseph’s (Fort Myers, Fla.) — 79.7% chance to win
- Nov. 27 vs. Gonzaga (Fort Myers, Fla.) — 13.5% chance to win
- Nov. 30 at UCF — 28.8% chance to win
- Dec. 4 vs. South Alabama — 70.1% chance to win
- Dec. 12 vs. Memphis (Atlanta) — 28.3% chance to win
- Dec. 15 vs. Texas Southern — 77.7% chance to win
- Dec. 19 vs. Troy — 83.2% chance to win
- Dec. 22 vs. Appalachian State — 74.8% chance to win
- Jan. 30 at Baylor (SEC/Big 12 Challenge) — 6.2% chance to win
SEC SCHEDULE
- Dec. 30 vs. Arkansas — 41.8% chance to win
- Jan. 2 at Texas A&M — 21.6% chance to win
- Jan. 6 at Ole Miss — 16.5% chance to win
- Jan. 9 vs. Alabama — 46.6% chance to win
- Jan. 13 at Georgia — 24.9% chance to win
- Jan. 16 vs. Kentucky — 41.8% chance to win
- Jan. 20 at Arkansas — 15.9% chance to win
- Jan. 23 at South Carolina — 18.3% chance to win
- Jan. 26 vs. Missouri — 47.7% chance to win
- Feb. 2 vs. Georgia — 54.9% chance to win
- Feb. 6 vs. Ole Miss — 40.5% chance to win
- Feb. 9 at Vanderbilt — 28.3% chance to win
- Feb. 13 at Kentucky — 16.8% chance to win
- Feb. 16 vs. Mississippi State — 42.0% chance to win
- Feb. 20 at LSU — 11.8% chance to win
- Feb. 23 vs. Florida — 27.4% chance to win
- Feb. 27 vs. Tennessee — 25.5% chance to win
- March 2 at Alabama — 20.8% chance to win
Projected record: 10-16 (5-13 SEC)