AUBURN | It’s been three days and I’m still a little shocked over Auburn’s first-round loss to Yale in the NCAA Tournament.

Even with Chad Baker-Mazara’s untimely exit, I fully expected the Tigers to run them off the floor for another double-digit win.

But it didn’t happen and one of the best teams of the Bruce Pearl era ended its season with a bit of a thud.

The why’s for the loss are many. Certainly Baker-Mazara’s Flagrant 2 foul played a part. He had become AU’s best on-ball playmaker and an emotional leader for the team.

He’s also been an instigator and played on the edge for most of the season.

Pearl, who rightfully sticks up for his players, said afterwards that he didn’t think the elbow was excessive enough to warrant an upgrade from a Flagrant 1 to a 2.

But that’s a judgement call from the referee and when you throw an intentional elbow like that running down the court, you are taking an unnecessary risk. It backfired spectacularly.

But even without CBM, Auburn still had the talent, experience and depth to win this one.

Pearl, who called it one of the most disappointing losses of his career, mentioned several other issues that contributed to the loss starting with the 14 turnovers including six that came in the final seven minutes.

Auburn had 14 or more turnovers just three times over the final two months of the season — 15 in the blowout loss at Florida, 16 in a loss at Tennessee and 15 in what turned into a rugby match against Mississippi State in the SEC Tournament semifinals.

Yale’s 31 free throw attempts to AU’s 22 and AU missing four of its final five free throws including the front end of a 1-and-1 down the stretch certainly played a part too.

Not to mention Yale’s John Poulakidas coming two points short of his career-high with 28 points and making 6 of 9 3-pointers.

But in a lot of ways, it was just one of those upsets in the NCAA Tournament that happens every single year.

Just in the last 10 tournaments, a 12 seed has beaten a 5 seed 14 times, a 13 seed has beaten a 4 seed eight times, a 14 seed has beaten a 3 seed six times, a 15 seed has beaten a 2 seed four times and a 16 seed has beaten a 1 seed twice.

That’s 33 major upsets in the last 10 tournaments. It’s what makes the NCAA Tournament so much fun — expect for those teams on the wrong end of those upsets like Auburn was Friday.

It’s easy to forget that had 12 seed New Mexico State’s Terrell Brown made all three of his free throws with 1.7 seconds left, 5 seed Auburn would have had a similar exit from the 2019 tournament and never made that Final Four run.

The Tigers went on to upset No. 4 seed Kansas, No. 1 seed North Carolina and No. 2 seed Kentucky. It was an incredible run and a lot of things went AU’s way to make it happen.

Five years later, it didn’t go AU’s way. You can parse all the reasons why, put the blame on coaches or players, but sometimes you just have to tip your hat to the magic of March Madness.

And once you get over the shock and disappointment of the early exit, you can look back on the 2023-24 season as the success it was.

Pearl brought Auburn only the third SEC Tournament championship in school history, and the second in the last five years. Picked to finish sixth in the conference, Auburn tied for second.

Nobody is happy with the way 2024 finished in Spokane but even before the final buzzer sounded, Pearl and his staff were working behind the scenes to build a stronger roster for ’25.

I believe they will and Auburn will be back competing for championships again next season. And maybe they’ll find a little bit of that magic next March too.

***

In today’s musical journey, we go back 54 years to the day a debut single from one of the best bands of the 1970’s rises to No. 1 on the Billboard 100. On March 25, 1972, America’s “A Horse With No Name” hit the top of the U.S. charts along with the group’s self-titled debut album rising to the top of the Billboard 200. The album was first recorded at Trident Studios in London and released in Europe in December of 1971 to lukewarm sales. They recorded three additional songs including “A Horse With No Name,” which quickly became a worldwide hit and was added to the album for its U.S. release a few months later. The album included another top 10 hit in “I Need You.” America’s second album, 1972’s Homecoming, produced another top 10 hit in “Ventura Highway,” and the hits kept coming in the 1970’s with 1974’s “Tin Man” and “Lonely People,” 1975’s “Daisy Jane” and their second No. 1 single, 1975’s “Sister Golden Hair.” America released a total of 18 studio albums through 2015 but their last top 10 hit came from 1982’s “You Can Do Magic.” Their compilation album, History: America’s Greatest Hits, became one of their best-selling albums upon its release in 1975.

Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and Dan Peek all met at London Central High School in the mid-1960’s while their fathers were stationed at the nearby U.S. Air Force base. They started playing with borrowed acoustic guitars and developed a three-part harmony in a similar style to Crosby, Stills & Nash. They chose the name America after an Americana jukebox in the base mess hall and because they didn’t want anyone to mistake them as British artists. After releasing their first album, they added a drummer and bass guitarist, and Peek began playing more electric guitar to give the band more or a rock sound. Peek left the band in 1977 to pursue a solo career wile Beckley and Bunnell carried on the group as a duo. Peek continued to collaborate with the pair until his death in 2011 due to fibrinous pericarditis. America won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1973 and was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2006. They have sold over 1.2 million records.