AUBURN | It took more than two months but Auburn finally lost another basketball game.

I guess it’s okay to be a little grumpy about it, but this team certainly isn’t going to panic over a loss and neither should you.

There was absolutely no way the Tigers were just going to roll through the conference undefeated this season, especially with it being as good as it’s ever been.

And the losing might just continue into next week with two tough road games against Vanderbilt and No. 3 Alabama.

Then again, it might not because Auburn remains one of the best teams in the country and a favorite to make a deep run in March.

Florida, which beat Auburn 90-81 Saturday, could very well make an NCAA Tournament run as well. Bruce Pearl called them a Final Four team and I’m inclined to believe.

The Gators have excellent guard play, outstanding bigs, plenty of depth and experience, and good coaching.

Auburn has the same.

And I know nobody likes comparisons to last year because of the way it ended, but UF beat AU pretty handily during the regular season only to have AU return the favor in the SEC Tournament championship game.

This year’s Tigers are better than last year and would certainly look forward to a rematch with UF anytime, anywhere including deep into March Madness.

The SEC could have four of the top five teams in the latest AP Top 25 later today, and the conference will be a heavy favorite to win a national championship for the first time since Kentucky in 2012.

That strength should show in March, but for now, SEC schools are going to keep beating up on each other as they compete for the regular season and tournament titles.

And that could certainly mean more losses for Auburn and for the other top teams in the league.

In the last 10 years, the NCAA Tournament champion has averaged five losses. Only three of the 10 had three or less losses including Baylor, which was 28-2 in 2020-21 having eight games cancelled due to COVID.

For elite teams like Auburn, losses in February can provide the building blocks for a March run. It exposes a team’s weaknesses and can provide the push a team needs to get five percent better.

Auburn had one of those losses Saturday, more could come this week or in the coming weeks. Pearl and his players won’t flinch and neither should you.

It’s going to be an absolute dogfight for the SEC regular and tournament championships. Several teams, and not necessarily the winners, should emerge with a chance to cut down the nets on April 7.

Auburn will be one.

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In today’s musical journey, we go back 35 years to the day a fourth single reached No. 1 from one of the greatest debut albums of all time. On Feb. 10, 1990, Paula Abdul’s “Opposites Attract” rose to the top of the Billboard 100 for the first of three weeks. Forever Your Girl was released in 1988 and was the best-selling debut album at that time. The first three No. 1 singles from the album were “Straight Up,” “Forever Your Girl” and “Cold Hearted.” The album was released in June of 1988 but the first two singles didn’t make the top 40 on the Billboard 100. That changed with the release of “Straight Up” in November of 1988 and the next three No. 1 songs were released over the next year. The video for “Opposites Attract,” which featured Abdul singing a duet with a cartoon cat named, MC Skat Kat, won a Grammy Award. All four hit songs were written by producers and songwriters Oliver Leiber and Elliot Wolff. Leiber wrote and provided instrumentation for “Opposites Attract.” When it came time to release the single, Leiber added a rap interlude, which was recorded by Derrick ‘Delite’ Stevens at Prince’s Paisley Park.

Paula Julie Abdul was born in 1962 in San Fernando, Calif., where she was a cheerleader and honor student at Van Nuys High School. Her mother, Lorraine, was a concert pianist, but Abdul excelled in dance at an early age. During her freshman year at Cal State Northridge, Abdul earned a spot on the Laker Girls, becoming the head choreographer for the within a year. Her big break into the music industry came in 1984 when she was spotted by the members of the Jackson 5 at a Lakers game and was signed to do the choreography of their video for “Torture.” She went on to choreograph several videos for Janet Jackson including “Nasty” and “When I Think of You.” She also choreographed the scene in the 1988 movie Big when Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia dance on a giant keyboard. She used her savings to record a demo tape in 1988 and was signed by the newly formed Virgin Records. She recorded three albums over seven years and had two other No. 1 singles in 1991’s “Rush Rush” and “The Promise of a New Day.” Abdul has appeared in more than 100 films and T.V. shows including being a judge on American Idol from 2002-09. She was also a judge on Live to Dance, The X Factor and So You Think You Can Dance. She won two Primetime Emmy Awards for her choreography on The Tracy Ullman Show. Abdul headlined her own tour in 2019 and had a residency in Las Vegas in 2019-20.