Auburn Basketball Memories

Ah Auburn basketball. Well since this is my first post since I started STR on Auburn basketball I would like to state my “credentials”. I have watched a lot of Auburn basketball in my life. In fact when I was at school at Auburn I saw a lot more basketball games than I saw football games and most of those teams were not very good. Since we will open a new arena next season with a new coach this seems like a good time to look back and look forward and evaluate where Auburn is at.

My first memories of Auburn basketball were Charles Barkley in 1984. I had just started high school. I remember watching the game where Sir Charles and Auburn beat #1 Kentucky in Auburn. I can’t remember the game but I remember one of my favorite basketball plays ever being a Charles Barkley steal that he took coast-to-coast dribbling around his back at one point and then hammer dunking it. His athleticism for his body type was just amazing.

I also remember Auburn and Charles beating Bama twice in 1984 and that being the last time we beat Bama in Tuscaloosa till 1999 (!!!). I remember watching the heartbreaking defeat to Kentucky in the finals of the SEC tournament in 1984 at my grandmother’s house. That was when Kentucky was led by the twin towers of Sam Bowie and Melvin Turpin. I remember Charles Barkley’s last game at Auburn being a loss to Richmond in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

I remember Chuck Person and his patented top-of-the-circle shot. If only, if only Chuck Person had gotten to play with a 3-point line... I remember Person and Auburn beating Bama in OT in the finals of the SEC tournament in 1985. I recorded that game and watched it several more times. I loved watching us beat Wimp Sanderson. We did not do it a whole lot after that. I remember that team beating Kansas in the NCAA tournament and then losing to North Carolina in the Sweet Sixteen.

I remember the unbelievable run to the Elite Eight in 1986. Auburn just kept winning and doing it against big-time teams. They beat Arizona, St. Johns and UNLV before falling to eventual national champ Louisville. I remember the monster regular season game against UNLV IN 1987. I remember that team getting completely hosed in the NCAA tournament against Indiana. I remember the calls going against Indiana starting out and Bobby Knight going on one of his famous tirades. After that the Hoosiers got about 10 straight calls in a row and the game was pretty much over.

I remember watching or listening to John Caylor hit that 3-pointer to beat #1 Kentucky and Rex Chapman in 1988 at Rupp Arena. I remember missing the first HOUR of my Calculus 1 FINAL EXAM watching Chris Morris battle Hersey Hawkins in the first round of the NCAA tournament in 1988. I was lucky I got out of that class with just a “C”…

I remember the bottom falling out in 1989 and Sonny Smith leaving. I remember Auburn starting 0-10 in the SEC and being there with a few hundred other people on a Saturday night when we finally won one against Miss St behind the shooting of Keenan Carpenter. I remember Reggie Gallon, Ronnie Battle, and a host of others as I watched just about every home basketball game from 1990 through 1992. Those were some brutal years and NOBODY can ever accuse me of not supporting our basketball program and my group and I kept coming back out.

I remember seeing Shaq come to Auburn as a freshman and being amazed at his size. I remember his first shot being a rocket off the backboard but could see by his unbelievable athleticism for a guy that big that he was going to be something special. I remember Auburn upsetting LSU and Shaq in the SEC tournament that same year. I remember Auburn and Wesley Person upsetting an Arkansas team that would go to win a national championship in 1995. However the decade between 1988 and 1999 consisted of mediocre to bad basketball and no NCAA tournaments.

Everyone who is any kind of Auburn fan remembers 1999. I remember the excitement just continuing to build as Auburn fans everywhere began to realize that something special was happening. It was an unbelievable team and definitely the last team at Auburn to actually have good players and the right players at each position on the court. You had Doc Robinson at the point, still the best point guard and ball handler I have ever seen at Auburn. You had Scotty Pohlman at the shooting guard knocking them down. BTW is it really that hard to find another Scott Pohlman to sit outside and hit 3-pointers? You had Mamadou N’diaye at center. The last true center we had. You had Chris Porter and all his athleticism at one forward and you had Bryant Smith, the heart and soul of the team, at the other forward.

Doc Robinson’s ball-handling, Scotty Pohlman’s shooting, Mamadou’s shot blocks, Chris Porter’s dunks and Bryant Smith’s defense. It was a once-in-a-lifetime team and will probably always remain Auburn’s best ever basketball team. I remember the Ole Miss game at home late in the season on ESPN where the team played maybe their best game and the crowd was out of their minds. I remember clinching the SEC title against Vandy. That was a special accomplishment. I remember beating Oklahoma St and current ESPN know-it-all Doug Gottlieb in the second round of the NCAA tournament. I remember the crushing defeat to Ohio St in the Sweet Sixteen. However the best part of 1999 was being able to STOMP Bama THREE times in ONE season. I saw Wimp Sanderson do it to us several times so it was awesome to finally do it to them.

I remember the excitement going into the 2000 season but having the sneaking feeling we would miss Bryant Smith. Smith was from my hometown of Huntsville and will always be one of my all-time favorite Auburn basketball players. I remember Auburn being on TV a ton in 2000 and things going pretty well till we lost Chris Porter for dealing with an agent. After that we lost four-in-a-row. The team made a run to the SEC tournament final before falling to Arkansas and then went out to Iowa St in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

I do have one great memory from that season. I got to see the last big win of the Chris Porter era at Auburn. That game was at Vanderbilt on February 16, 2000. Living in Huntsville, Alabama I have gone to see Auburn play Vandy several times in Nashville since it is so close. Anyone who has been to Vanderbilt to see a basketball game knows how weird their gym is. Up to this point I had always had lousy seats and Vandy had always stomped us. This time a friend of my brother had set us up with Vanderbilt scholarship tickets from the doctor she worked for. It was about the best time I ever had at a basketball game. I finally saw us beat those guys up there and we had great seats. However the best part might have been our group crashing the Vanderbilt scholarship halftime concessions (we had tickets for that too). Vanderbilt scholarship donors or people with their tickets could go to a room and get all the free food they wanted. We busted in with all our Auburn gear on and enjoyed as many hot dogs, bags of popcorn and cookies as we could get in. We then of course had to grab a couple for the road. Needless to say the dirty looks coupled with a win in that hell hole made it a night to remember.

The program quickly dropped off after that. There have been few moments to remember other than a run to the Sweet Sixteen led by Marquis Daniels after a mediocre 8-8 SEC season in 2003. The first decade of the 21st century resembles the last decade of the 20th century for Auburn basketball. Other than the 1999 season and a couple of runs here and there it has been 20 years of mediocre to bad basketball on the plains.