Welcome to “The Daily Scoop”, an article to bring you up to date with the latest news from college basketball and a preview of the day ahead.

Daily Headlines

The nation’s number one overall seed has once again found its form in the NCAA Tournament

Over the course of this week leading up to the Final Four, I’ll take you inside each of the Final Four teams’ paths to San Antonio and what it will take for each of them to cut down the nets on Monday night. For my articles on Duke, Houston, and Florida, check http://hoopscoopmedia.com, but now onto the Auburn Tigers, who have finally looked like the team that was the clear-cut number one for a decent portion of the season.

After losing its final two regular season games and going 1-1 in the SEC Tournament, the momentum was all in the wrong direction as Auburn geared up for the NCAA Tournament. In the round of 64, Auburn matched up against Alabama State, but even the Hornets gave the Tigers some trouble for the first 20 minutes. With 1:27 left in the first half, ASU’s Amarr Knox had a chance to give Alabama State the lead with two free throws, but missed both, and the Hornets never got close again. Auburn scored on its final four possessions of the first half to take a 41-31 lead into the locker room and really haven’t looked back in the whole tournament since that moment. The game finished 83-63 as Miles Kelly led the way with 23 points on seven three-pointers.

In round two, Auburn faced a stern test from Creighton, a team who has seen some mild NCAA Tournament success over the past few years under Greg McDermott. After a tightly contested first half sent Creighton into the locker room up by two, the Tigers turned it on in the second half once again. Trailing 50-48 in the second half, Auburn found another 10-0 run and cruised from there to an 82-70 win. Bruce Pearl’s halftime motivations must’ve worked for a second consecutive game as Auburn outscored Creighton 47-33 in the final 20 minutes. Once again it took 23 points to be the leading scorer for Auburn, and in the second round it was the freshman, Tahaad Pettiford, who finished with 23 on a 7-of-14 night from the field. After two wins in Lexington at Rupp Arena, it would again be a short drive for Auburn fans as the team headed to the South regional in Atlanta.

Auburn’s Johni Broome, one of the two players at the summit of the National Player of the Year race next to Cooper Flagg, hadn’t had the start to the tournament that a typical NPOY would have, but when the Tigers got to Atlanta, Broome got back into form. Michigan was the Sweet 16 matchup for Auburn, creating a couple of interesting storylines as Johni Broome and Dylan Cardwell would match up against the Wolverines’ 7-foot duo of Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin while former Auburn guard Tre Donaldson went up against his former team as Michigan’s starting point guard. With a similar storyline to the first two rounds, Auburn went into halftime in a tight game, this time around ahead by one. Once again, the offense exploded in the second half, this time going for 48 points as Auburn pulled away to win 78-65. Broome, Pettiford, and Denver Jones did almost all the damage all night for Auburn, as the trio combined for 62 of the team’s 78 points. Broome’s 22 points and 16 rebounds, including nine on the offensive glass led the way and reminded fans where this guy stood in terms of the NPOY race.

In the Elite Eight, it was finally time for Auburn to do some damage in the first half, and the Tigers did just that, executing a 17-0 run in the middle of the first half to take a commanding lead over Michigan State. The Spartans had the deficit cut to nine by halftime and five early in the second half but never got closer as the Tigers leaned heavily on their star Johni Broome. Outside of a five-minute stretch where Broome was in the locker room getting x-rays on a possible injury, there seemingly wasn’t a possession where he wasn’t the guy in control. After an injury scare that had most thinking Broome might never play again, the senior forward came back out on the floor with about five minutes left, quickly grabbing a one-handed offensive rebound before burying a three-pointer to unofficially wrap the game up. Auburn would win by a final score of 70-64 against the Spartans, sending the program to its second-ever Final Four with the first coming in 2019, in an event where Michigan State was also in attendance. Broome finished the game with 25 points and 14 rebounds, going 10-of-13 from the field.

When Auburn takes the floor on Saturday evening, it will do so as underdogs for the first time since February 15 at Alabama and only the third time all season. The Tigers will face off against a Florida team that won on the road against Auburn in the regular season, and the storyline of revenge is already built. While the Tigers have slipped to fourth at KenPom ahead of the Final Four weekend, just like the other three teams in San Antonio, Auburn boasts a top ten offense (third) and top ten defense (eighth). Four of the best teams in modern history will play in San Antonio this weekend, and Bruce Pearl is looking to advance Auburn to its first-ever national championship game and maybe even lift the school’s first ever national title in men’s basketball.

While I do like to take credit as the one who started the Auburn hype train this season with an article here on this website last May, I slightly lean towards the Gators winning this game as it stands here on the morning of the game. If Johni Broome is fully healthy and can play a complete game, his dominance inside could be the difference though, as he struggled from the floor, shooting just 8-of-19 in the teams’ first meeting this season. When it’s all said and done, I’ll do what many of the larger college basketball personalities have done over the course of this week, I’ll take the cop-out – and truly mean it when I write it – that no combination of outcomes in San Antonio would surprise me when it’s all said and done. We have four of the best teams in modern history playing in front of our own eyes over the next three days, so sit back, enjoy the games, and don’t be surprised when the unexpected happens.

Other Things to Note:

• The Final Four tips off on Saturday at 6:09 ET on CBS as Florida takes on Auburn followed by the matchup between Houston and Duke