The world is desperate for college basketball.

After cancellations of the remainder of the college season and the indefinite suspension of the NBA due to concerns of the spread of coronavirus, fans and basketball junkies have been ramping up bracket projections for a 68-team field we'll never see, simulations and advanced predictions for conference tournaments that will never be completed, and a general longing for any basketball content.

And in the midst of the nation-wide craving for the wondrous hoops action the month of March annually brings, Auburn fan Geoff Parsh took the situation into his own hands.

Or, rather, his own Twitter account.

"Maybe we can get people laughing," Parsh said. "Maybe everybody can have a little fun."

Starting at the exact time Auburn basketball was set to tip off in the SEC quarterfinals last Friday, Parsh did his best "live reporting" of how he thought the action might be playing out in an alternate reality of the sport where Bruce Pearl's Tigers hadn't been sent home from Nashville.

Scroll through Parsh's timeline, and someone unaware of the nation-wide sports cancellations might believe the narratives Parsh illustrated with every tweet.

"Well, if we're going to do this virtually, then I can get out there and make all the comments you'd normally make during a game," he said.

Like the rest of the world, Auburn fans were physically isolated from each other during this faux SEC Tournament run. But that didn't mean they couldn't help Parsh out in portraying the virtual action.

"That's one of the biggest reasons I'd be on Twitter now — that interaction with the other fans," Parsh said. "It's almost like a virtual-reality section at the game, in the stands, with everybody you're talking to left and right, front and back."

The "plays" just came to Parsh, he said, as he recalled on the tendencies — both good and bad — of Auburn's 2019-20 team.

"I was kind of thinking through the different games of the season and what roles different players played," Parsh said. "And then what roles did we, as fans, want them to play, or want to see them play. Obviously I tried to make some things up, but then you've got to lace in reality in there with things that didn't go right — SEC officiating, a little of that, guys getting behind and missing shots for a while.

"Hopefully it makes the guys feel good knowing we appreciate them and the things they've done out there this season and the past couple of seasons. It's a lot of hard work they put in. As fans, obviously we get frustrated when we see them not make shots or wonder why they're shooting another 3 or why does (Austin) Wiley drop the ball? But we're not out there playing. And they put in a ton of work."

Parsh had no doubt Auburn's current trajectory would have carried it into the SEC title game for the second straight season. And in his mind, that in fact did happen, and the Tigers came away victorious after a barn burner.

"They were peaking," Parsh said. "They were getting better. The bench was getting better at the right time. That's kind of the team that Pearl has built. He knows he's got to have them peaking and playing their best ball come March, you know?

"I think that's what we were starting to see with this team."

Unfortunately for every college basketball fan, he or she will never get to see the potential of their respective 2019-20 teams play out in the NCAA Tournament.

Auburn, too, is obviously bummed about that. But the Tigers — and their fans, some die-hard enough like Parsh to take the time to paint a picture of what could have been — can find some consolation in what they had already accomplished.

They became the second team in program history to be ranked in the AP poll for the entirety of a season. They're the winningest team in SEC play over the last three seasons with 36 victories — a program record for a three-year span. They have the winningest senior class in program history.

And perhaps most importantly, Pearl's teams over the past few seasons completely altered the perception of the Auburn basketball program from a perennial doormat to a national contender.

"They're an incredible team," Parsh said. "They're different than last year, but they're just as exciting and just as fun to watch. And they're just as good."

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