AUBURN | There are important moments throughout a basketball season and one of Auburn’s most significant came Saturday night in the Gateway City.
Trailing by 13 points with nine minutes left, Auburn staged a furious rally to come away with a 74-70 win at St. Louis.
It was true road win over a quality opponent. The Billikens are No. 70 in the NET Rankings, which makes it a Quadrant 1 win. That’s a big check in Auburn’s account when it comes time to seed the NCAA Tournament in March.
But more than that, it was another big step forward in this team believing in itself and what it can accomplish this season.
The players know they can handle the pressure of being behind in a tough atmosphere. They know the coaches can make the right moves at the right time to help spur a rally.
They know this team is only going to be better, perhaps much better, with the imminent return of Allen Flanigan.
There’s a lot of reasons for confidence. Yet there’s very little evidence this team is taking anything for granted.
Because even with freshman Jabari Smith, this team doesn’t dazzle you with its great skill or shooting. It just hustles and plays defense and finds ways to win.
More tests and more opportunities await in the coming days. Auburn hosts Murray State Wednesday, which will be a Quadrant 2 game and opens SEC play Dec. 29 against undefeated LSU, which is No. 3 in the NET Rankings.
The conference schedule will be tough. Along with LSU, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi are all top 50 NET teams. So is Oklahoma.
There will certainly be some ups and downs, but this team appears well built to adsorb those disappointment and bounce back better.
Before reeling off 12 consecutive wins on its march to the Final Four, the 2018-19 team lost three out of five including scoring just 55 points in a home loss to Ole Miss and a 27-point loss in Lexington.
This team doesn’t have the same 3-point firepower, but it’s got some bonafide stars in key spots and plenty of length to disrupt opposing offenses.
But it’s that toughness, being able to deal with adversity, that can make the biggest difference in what they can accomplish this season. They showed it at St. Louis. They’ve showed it all season starting 10-1 without Flanigan.
And they’ll need to keep doing it again and again and again.
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In today’s musical journey, we go back 48 years to the untimely death of a rising star in the music industry. On Dec. 20, 1973, Bobby Darin died at the age of 37 following heart surgery. Born Walden Robert Cassotto in East Harlem in 1936, Darin was stricken with rheumatic fever on multiple occasions at age eight, which damaged his heart. He grew up limited in what he could do physically and doctors told him he probably wouldn’t survive past his teens. He was raised by his grandmother, who he thought was his mother. It wasn’t revealed until he was 32 years old that the woman he thought was his sister, was actually his mother who gave birth to him at 17. Darin was a born musician and entertainer. He was able to play piano, guitar and drums as a teenager and started a songwriting career at age 19 in 1955. He was also very determined to make something of himself in the limited time his health would allow.
Darin started writing for Connie Francis in 1955 and the pair nearly eloped. His big break came in 1958 with the recording and release of Splish Splash in 1958, which sold over a million records, and Dream Lover the following year, which was an even bigger success. It also made him into a teen idol. He had another huge hit in 1959 with Mack the Knife, which spent nine weeks at No. 1 and won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1960. Darin also won the Grammy for Best New Artist. He launched his acting career appearing in 1961’s Come September with Rock Hudson and Sandra Dee, who he would marry in 1961 and divorce in 1967. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in 1963’s Captain Newman, MD. Darin recorded an impressive 27 albums over 14 years and also starred in 13 films. Darin’s health started to decline and he had heart valve replacement surgery in 1970. After a dental procedure in 1972, Darin didn’t take antibiotics, which led to blood poisoning and eventually his death in 73. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and Songwriters Hall of Fame in 99.
