Despite earning the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history, Auburn did not have the ending to the regular season it would have hoped for.

The Tigers dropped their final two games and did not live up to expectations in the SEC Tournament. As a result, speculation that Auburn’s best basketball was behind it began to circulate. A rough first half in its NCAA Tournament first-round matchup against Alabama State added fuel to that fire.

The Tigers picked up a convincing win over Creighton in the second round to earn a spot in the Sweet 16, showing that they still had it in the process. Throughout the rough stretch, Chaney Johnson insisted that Auburn never lost its belief in itself.

“I mean I feel like the guys always had our confidence,” Johnson said. “Like I said many of times we didn't really end the season how we wanted to. So I mean the number one team in the country for a reason, I feel like we are a great team, a really talented team. So it was good to finally play hard. But yeah, I feel like we always kind of been confident.”

Part of the Tigers’ spark being reignited came from members of the team breaking out of their individual slumps. One of these players was Chad Baker-Mazara.

“I feel like he sparked us for that run,” Denver Jones said of Baker-Mazara. “I feel like we were playing really good defense. We were getting some good looks on offense. But we noticed when he started getting it going, and we just fed off his energy.”

Another contributing factor to Auburn’s confidence is having a player of Johni Broome’s caliber on the floor.

“I feel like we're impossible to guard,” Jones said. “We've got the National Player of the Year down low, and we've got us outside. We're all hitting, and he's gonna get his down there. We know how deadly we can be.”

The Tigers take on No. 5 seed Michigan inside State Farm Arena, a venue Auburn knows well, in Atlanta on Friday. Tipoff is set for 8:40 p.m. CT and CBS will carry the broadcast.