Auburn basketball is at a dead end

"The perception outside Auburn is that Barbee's attempts to turn a struggling program around have run into a dead end"

The quote above is from an article posted today by Kevin Scarbinsky, columnist for the Birmingham News, in response to the latest bad news out of the Auburn basketball program.  Auburn basketball players leaving the program has become an annual event at Auburn for as long as I can remember.  No matter what you can guarantee every year that several Auburn basketball underclassmen will leave the program under negative circumstances.  This year is no different as Coach Barbee dismissed Josh Langford and Cedrick McAfee from the program for an undisclosed violation of team rules and suspended Noel Johnson.  This follows the news that two other players recruited by Barbee, Willy Kouassi and Bernard Morena announced their plans to transfer.  This leaves Auburn with only two players from Barbee's first two recruiting classes, Chris Denson and the suspended Johnson.

This all follows another horrible season that ended with allegations of point shaving by another Barbee recruit, transfer Varez Ward.  I posted my comments on the season in the post below this named "Critical Condition".  I concluded that post stating: "Auburn basketball is in critical condition and the prognosis looks extremely bleak".  I am now ready to call time of death on the whole thing but will simply agree with Scarbinsky's quote above that it looks like the latest attempts to resuscitate the program have run into a dead end.  The same dead end that seemingly every coach in basketball runs into sooner or later at Auburn.

I reference many of my big posts on Auburn basketball in the "Critical Condition" post except for this post I made when Josh Langford who is from my hometown of Huntsville committed to Auburn.  This post was written almost exactly two years ago.  It is the most positive post and thoughts I have ever had about Auburn basketball.  Please read it as it was also based on an article by Mr. Scarbinsky.  See the optimism as the train left the station two years ago and now look at the train wreck things are now.  The Josh Langford saga from beginning to end as documented in that post and this one is just another sad tale to file in the annals of Auburn basketball.  It, as I wrote, hits close to "home" for me.

I said in "Critical Condition" that I did not blame anything on Barbee.  I said I thought Auburn hired the right guy at the time.  I still believe that but will have to say that Barbee must share in the blame now after seeing four more of his recruits exit the program.  What a mess.  Of course, as always, the coaches and administration are saying that this years' recruiting class will save the day.  This time it will be different!  I have heard that one way too many times as well.  I hope this time it will be different but right now all I see is another dead end.