KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Nobody expected Auburn to be here.

That's OK with the Tigers.

When they got their bracket, they knew the road would be tough. Auburn started with one of two 30-win teams coming into the tournament. New Mexico State played like a team that had won that many games.

Then, Auburn had the murderer's row of blue bloods — Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky — the three winningest programs in college basketball history.

Auburn was confident, sure. But to win all four against those teams and advance to the first Final Four in program history? There's no way, right?

Wrong.

"It’s just that we’re national contenders. Don’t write us off too soon. A lot of people wrote us off after we lost to Kentucky last time," Anfernee McLemore said. "Don’t sleep on us. Don’t sleep on coach [Bruce] Pearl. Somebody has to win it all. Why not us?"

The final obstacle proved to be the toughest.

Auburn knew it would be, and it was only right.

Kentucky was the team that pushed Auburn into this magical March run. The 27-point blowout in Rupp Arena could've sent the Tigers into a tailspin. It did the opposite. Auburn hasn't lost since. It went undefeated in March, a convenient time to start playing your best basketball.

But without Chuma Okeke and falling to an 11-point first-half deficit, it seemed like a long shot.

To come back and force overtime, to win by a comfortable six points in the extra period, it shows how far Auburn basketball has come as a program since Pearl arrived. Most of the Tigers' roster has seen the depths this program sank to just a few years ago.

"Everybody knows how the program was before they came here," Austin Wiley said. "That was a big pitch that BP said to us. We all just wanted to come make history. It’s just special, and we don’t wanna stop here."

"It feels good to see where we came from as a program. I’m really happy right now. I want to cry, but I’m not gonna do it," Horace Spencer said. "We know we have more games this week. We’ve got the Final Four and the championship. That’s where we want to be at. I’ll probably cry then."

Bryce Brown doesn't blame people for their conventional thinking.

He was a 3-star. Jared Harper is oftentimes the smallest player on the floor. Nobody — outside of the injured Okeke — was recruited heavily by the blue blood programs everyone expected to knock off the Tigers.

Everyone tells Auburn it isn't supposed to be here, but it is.

"We’re not big-time names. After today, we probably are. None of us are huge big-time names. We weren’t highly-recruited," Brown said. "We don’t have McDonald’s All-Americans. Why wouldn’t you pick a team full of McDonald’s All-Americans over 3-stars? I understand it. Hopefully we made a statement and people are waking up."

This was the blueprint Pearl laid out years ago.

Maybe the Final Four seemed too lofty, even to Pearl. But he knew what this specific roster was capable of, the chip each of his players bring to the gym on a daily basis.

Auburn's road won't get easier from here. The Tigers head to Minneapolis to face the only No. 1 seed left in the NCAA Tournament. They opened as a 5.5-point underdog at most reputable sports books.

Auburn wouldn't have it any other way.

"I’m OK with people picking everyone else over us. Our guys get bulletin-board material basically every time they turn a TV on with people picking against us, which we love," Steven Pearl said. "All of our guys have chips on their shoulders, and they were recruited that way. We recruited these guys because they all have something to prove. So keep picking against us. That’s fine. We’re just going to keep grinding it out."