AUBURN | I’m not sure any team in the country could use a six-day break as much as Auburn.

The Tigers finished a grueling regular season as the undisputed SEC Champions and a spectacular 16-4 record in Quad 1 games. But this season has taken its toll.

It certainly showed last week as Auburn lost consecutive games for the first time all season in grueling, physical matchups at Texas A&M and at home against Alabama.

The Tigers are not playing their best basketball entering the postseason. That’s what makes those six days so important.

Auburn won’t know its opponent for Friday’s SEC Tournament quarterfinal until Thursday afternoon, which is just fine.

This team needs to work on itself. It needs to rest, heal up and reset. It needs to find answers to how the Aggies and Tide combined for 34 offensive rebounds, 47 second-chance points and 91 points in the paint.

Through the first 16 conference games, AU allowed 71.9 points per game. AU gave up 82 to TAMU and 93 to UA. If that trend continues, it’s going to be a short postseason.

The offensive attacks weren’t the same in both games but Alabama, the SEC’s leading 3-point shooting team, saw enough from Texas A&M to not attempt a 3-pointer until more than five minutes into the game. UA had 13 layups and five dunks against AU.

They lined up, drove inside and overpowered AU again and again.

Not every team is equipped to dominate Auburn like that inside, but there will be plenty in the NCAA Tournament that will see those two games and know AU’s potential vulnerabilities.

I say potential because I think part of the reason for AU’s defensive breakdowns, perhaps the biggest part, was the team just being worn down and tired.

It was certainly fatigue that caused AU not to switch defensively on the final play in overtime, which allowed Mark Sears to break free and drive into the lane to make the game-winning shot.

Auburn played it’s tail off all season. You don’t go 15-3 in perhaps the best-ever conference without paying the “Iron Price.”

AU did that primarily with a seven-man rotation. That’s a lot of wear and tear. All-American Johni Broome played 43 minutes against the Tide. That’s too much, and it’s partially due to Chad Baker-Mazara’s ejection for a Flagrant-2.

He’s played on the edge all season and finally broke Saturday. There’s no excuse for that. He should know better. Auburn can’t win without Baker-Mazara, and they won’t have an opportunity to win an SEC Tournament or NCAA Championship unless he get his antics under control.

Six days for a reset gives him time to decompress and gives AU’s staff more time to drive into his brain that he’s not going to get away with anything. Everything is on video. A retaliation will be punished and his history means he won’t be catching any breaks.

Six days. That’s what Auburn’s got between the Alabama loss and the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament.

Auburn can take big steps in those six days. It can make a difference. This team has another level it can reach. Bruce Pearl has talked for the last two weeks about the importance of having upside in the postseason.

Auburn needs to find it over these crucial six days.

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In today’s musical journey, we go back 46 years to the day a female empowerment anthem written by two men rises to the top of the charts. On March 10, 1979, Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” hit No. 1 on the Billboard 100 for the first of three weeks. The song was written by former Motown employees Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren. Fekaris had recently been fired and was worried about his future prospects until he heard one of his songs being performed on T.V. by Rare Earth. He said to himself, ‘I will survive,’ and the lyrics grew from there. Two years after the song was written, Perren was producing the song, “Substitute” for Gaynor and suggested “I Will Survive” for the B side. Gaynor read the lyrics, which were written on a piece of brown paper, and immediately knew it would be a hit. Gaynor and her backing band only had 35 minutes of studio time to record it and she did her part wearing a back brace following surgery after a fall at a concert. The song won Gaynor a Grammy Award for Best Disco Recording and has sold more than 14 million singles, which ranks in the top 15 of all-time. It was preserved in the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2019.

Gloria Fowles was born in Newark, N.J., in 1943. Her father, Daniel, played the ukulele and guitar and was the lead singer for a local group called Step ’n’ Fetchit. She started singing in local nightclubs after she graduated from South Side High School in 1961. She sang in a group called The Soul Satisfiers and recorded her first song, “She’ll Be Sorry,” under producer Johnny Nash, who suggested she change her last name to Gaynor and go by the nickname, G.G. She eventually attracted the attention of Clive Davis and Columbia Records and signed with the label in 1973. She moved to MGM Records in 1975, releasing her first album and earning her first top 10 hit in “Never Can Say Goodbye.” She was a popular artist during the disco era, which took place in the 1970’s and peaked in 1978-79. “I Will Survive” was her only No. 1 hit on the Billboard 100 but she had two other No. 1’s on the dance charts in 2001’s “Just Keep Thinking About You,” and 2002’s “I Never Knew,” which came during a disco revival movement. She has released 19 albums, appeared in eight T.V. shows and three movies. She was most recently the Mermaid in season eight of The Masked Singer.