AUBURN — Last week, Butch Thompson thought his daughter's car had been stolen.

The Auburn baseball coach woke up before the crack of dawn to do some recruiting. His daughter, who just finished her freshman year of college, had been with Thompson the night before at the baseball game. But in the morning, her car wasn't in the driveway. Thompson began to mildly panic. He headed toward his office, but called his daughter to wake her up to begin the search for her car.

"I call her, and she's like, 'Dad, my car's at your office,'" Thompson said. "Of course, when I pull into the parking lot, her car's sitting there and I'd already gotten her up."

Thompson told this anecdote for a purpose. It's just took him a minute to get to that point.

Auburn's baseball coach was amid a longer tangent about staying informed about NCAA Tournament qualification. Thompson, a pollster himself, talked about Auburn's RPI and strength-of-schedule standing before last week's Georgia series. Auburn was 17 in RPI and 4 in strength of schedule at the time. The RPI shifted to No. 19 after the series loss to Georgia.

Thompson is always aware of where Auburn is at in those metrics.

But the broader point — the purpose of telling the story of his daughter's (not) stolen car — had to do with his team's awareness. Thompson's point: Young people are always more in the loop than he is.

" My point is: They're so much more aware than I am of everything going on. I'm over thinking the car's getting stolen, and it's right where we left it. I'm just trying to get the team on the field and get some hits when it matters most," Thompson said. "These guys more than I do about some of this stuff."

After the series loss to Georgia, Auburn preps for a weekend series at LSU, one of the toughest venues in all of college baseball. The SEC Tournament is ahead, too, which gives the Tigers a few extra chances at wins following the tough closing series against Georgia and LSU.

Thompson keeps his players aware of where they're at in terms of less likely potential host possibilities and what it would take to just make the tournament.

"I have where we're at. Whatever opinion I come up with today, it's all going to be determined by what's happens next weekend at LSU. Regardless of what feeling I have right now, it'll change," Thompson said. "Being a pollster, being involved, being interested that our team gets more at-large teams historically, you're always aware. Honestly for the ball club, it's maybe a once-a-week check-in if you will. I think our players are aware of where they're at, what's in front of them."